itiHIfedlMiaAlMfMdMM^MlrMHMiMicaMrti 


THE  LIBRARIES 


Bequest  of 

Frederic  Bancroft 

1860-1945 


From  portrait  at  age  of  seventy-eight,  by  Winifred  Riebei 
Owned  by  Pacific  Theological  Seminary 


JOHN  KNOX  McLEAN 

A  BIOGRAPHY 


BY 

JOHN  WRIGHT  BUCKHAM 


SMITH    BROT-HBRJ? 

O/KI  A^.'D,  OAL. 


TO 

HENRY  VAN  DYKE 

FRIEND  AND  COMRADE  OF  DOCTOR  McLEAN 

COUNSELOR  AND  FRIEND  OF  THE  WRITER 

THIS  VOLUME  IS  GRATEFULLY 

INSCRIBED 


BEFORE  EVERY  OPEN  DOOR  OF  OPPORTUNITY 
THE  SOUL  IS  FREE  TO  ENTER,  TO  LOITER,  OR 
TO  TURN  AWAY 

DOCTOR  MCLEAN 


CHAPTERS 

PAGB 
WISDOM  NEVER  LEARNED  OF  SCHOOLS II 

THROUGH  LOWLY  DOORS  OF  SERVICE 20 

A  PASTORATE  OF  POWER 33 

THE  PARSON   AT  PLAY , 50 

GRACE    SEASONED  WITH    SALT 66 

BUILDER  AND  ADMINISTRATOR 83 

LIKE  A  TREE 94 

AT   SUNDOWN 112 


JOHN  KNOX  McLEAN 


FOREWORD 

The  aim  of  this  volume  is  not  only  to  help  to  pre- 
serve the  memory  of  a  good  man  and  the  influence  of  a 
sane  and  noble  life — though  that  were  enough — but  to 
make  evident,  through  a  brief  and  simple  narrative, 
something  of  the  beauty  and  might  of  the  Christian 
ministry  in  our  age. 

In  order  to  make  the  life-story  tell  itself,  as  far  as 
possible,  I  have  incorporated  much  of  what  has  been 
called  "unconscious  autobiography" —  reflections  and 
narratives  of  Dr.  McLean's  own. 

The  use  of  quotation  marks  has  been  as  far  as  possible, 
limited.  All  indented  sentences  and  paragraphs  should 
be  understood  as  quotations.  The  writer's  close  associa- 
tion with  President  McLean  in  the  Faculty  of  Pacific 
Theological  Seminary  is  his  only  justification,  save  the 
wish  of  Dr.  McLean's  family,  for  assuming  the  privilege 
of  writing  this  biography. 

Thanks  for  assistance  are  cordially  given  to  Mrs. 
McLean,  Mrs.  Warren  Olney,  Jr.,  to  my  colleagues, 
President  Nash  and  Professor  Bade  and  to  E.  P.  Flint, 
Esq.,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  J.  B.  Richardson  and  Mr.  H.  R. 
Jones  of  the  First  Church  of  Oakland. 

If  the  little  volume  at  all  reflects  the  spirit  of  its  sub- 
ject, it  cannot  fail  to  give  pleasure  and  do  good. 


CHAPTER  I. 

WISDOM  NEVER  LEARNED  OF  SCHOOLS. 

John  Knox  McLean  was  born  In  Jackson,  New 
York,  on  the  thirty-first  day  of  March,  1834. 
His  father,  Thomas  King  McLean,  was  the  eld- 
est of  six  sons  of  John  McLean,  a  prosperous 
farmer  of  Washington  County. 

The  McLeans  are  Highlanders,  whose  origi- 
nal home  was  the  Isle  of  Mull,  *'a  bold  and 
hardy  race,"  whom  John  Stuart  Blackie  has  de- 
scribed as  "generous  in  purpose  and  noble  in  con- 
duct".^ 

Our  scion  of  the  McLeans  was  justly  proud  of 
his  Scotch  strain.  But,  lest  he  should  be  unduly 
exalted,  as  the  Scotchman  sometimes  is,  there 
was  given  unto  him  an  admixture  of  Dutch  blood 
(what  more  natural  or  nearer  royalty,  in  the  val- 
ley of  the  Hudson?)  coming  to  him  mingled 
with  French,  through  his  mother,  Mary  Ferine. 

It  was  a  wholesome  admixture,  if  one  may 
judge  from  the  eight  children  who  were  the 
fruit  of  the  union,  five  sons — John  Knox  being 
the  youngest — and  three  daughters,  all  witness- 
ing by  their  lives  to  the  beneficent  effects  of  a 
home  life  pure,  thrifty,  reverent. 

Wonderful  is  the  miracle  of  the  awakening  of 
a  personality.  The  man  whose  development  we 
are  to  follow  has  himself  suggested  It  In  these 
words:  "A  twinkle  of  intelligence;  a  momen- 
tary fixed  attention;  a  glimmer  of  imagination 

*  History  of  the  Clan  McLean;   J.  P.  McLean,  p.  22. 


12  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

caught  by  eager  eyes;  a  flitting  smile,  provoked 
surely  from  without  and  no  longer  product  of 
Nature's  inner  subtlety:  Education  has  begun." 
The  early  life  of  John  was  that  of  a  typical 
farmer's  boy — isolated  and  hard-working,  but 
rich  in  health  and  happiness  and  in  companion- 
ship with  Nature. 

''Hand  in  hand  with  her  he  walked, 
Face  to  face  with  her  he  talked. 
Part  and  parcel  of  her  joy." 

"I  lived,"  said  Dr.  McLean,  in  describing  his 
boyhood,  "in  the  smallest  town  of  Washington 
County,  a  town  in  which  there  was  farming  alone 
— no  store,  no  factory,  no  railroad."  Far  from 
advantageous  this  seems,  at  first  thought,  for 
the  upbringing  of  a  child.  But  on  the  other 
hand,  the  advantages  of  it  proved  incalculable, 
In  this  as  in  countless  other  cases. 

So  deeply  did  the  love  of  Nature — her  beau- 
ties, her  sublimities,  her  lessons — sink  Into  the 
heart  of  this  disciple  that  to  the  end  of  his  life 
these  boyhood  days  on  the  farm  served  him  as 
treasure-trove,  from  which  he  constantly  drew  il- 
lustration, suggestion,  and  Inspiration.  The  ac- 
curacy of  his  boyhood  recollections  is  well  illus- 
trated in  a  delightfully  fresh  and  boyish  open  let- 
ter written  in  later  life  and  addressed  to  Henry 
Ward  Beecher,  entitled  "A  piscatory  Epistle  to 
Brother  Beecher,"  in  which,  after  warmly  ex- 
pressing his  admiration,  he  points  out  to  his  dis- 
tinguished brother  preacher  certain  egregious 
blunders  in  his  chapter  on  "Night  Fishing,"  in 


WISDOM   NEVER  LEARNED  OF  SCHOOLS  13 

^'Norwood,"  as  for  example,  the  anomaly  of 
catching  suckers  In  red  clover  time.  But  of  the 
effects  of  this  tutelage  of  nature  we  will  let  Dr. 
McLean  himself  speak,  in  words  taken  from  a 
paper  on  "The  Multitude  and  the  Solitude,"  read 
before  the  Berkeley  Club  in  1900: 

The  tuition  of  Nature  upon  the  country 
child  is  deep,  penetrating  and  abiding.  I, 
myself,  knew  a  boy,  a  very  little  boy,  not 
like  Wordsworth's,  but  tow-headed,  freckle- 
faced,  unpromising,  who  began  life  a 
stranger  to  all  reverence.  The  only  sug- 
gestion of  It  was  a  distressing  bashfulness. 
His  people  duly  took  him  in  the  big  farm 
wagon  to  church.  Little  development  he 
got  at  church,  except  it  might  be  through 
the  bent-pin  exercises  of  the  Sunday  School; 
those  Interested  him.  But  In  the  big  wagon 
on  the  way  to  church,  and  on  the  way  home 
again,  he  imbibed  what,  he  has  told  me,  he 
now  regards  as  an  Inciplency  of  real  relig- 
ion. Going  to  church,  over  a  range  of  hills 
half  as  high  as  ours,  the  broad  distant  val- 
ley of  the  Hudson  stretched  before  his 
eyes,  shut  In  afar  by  the  Saratoga  hills  and 
lower  Adirondacks.  While  going  home, 
the  way  looked  always  upon  the  long  ram- 
parts, for  miles  up  and  down,  of  the  beauti- 
ful Green  Mountains  of  Vermont.  These 
were  to  him  two  boundaries  of  the  world. 
Forest-clad,  distance-mellowed,  violet-hued, 
they  were  the  very  abode  of  mystery  and 
strangeness.      There  could  be  nothing  be- 


14  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

yond  them.  But  as  to  the  scope  within 
them,  that  was  an  open  region  within  which 
imagination  ran  riot.  Evil  spirits,  witches, 
hobgoblins,  dwelt  there,  no  doubt;  he  had 
not  listened  to  his  Pilgrim's  Progress  to  so 
little  purpose  as  to  have  question  about  that. 
But  what  else  might  be  there;  was  a  point 
which  had  to  find  its  solution  by  degrees 
and  was  finally  reached  through  a  sudden 
burst  of  illumination. 

It  came  about  in  this  wise.  The  boy's 
legs  had  grown  but  were  still  short.  He 
had  come  to  know  pasture,  meadow,  up- 
land, and  to  some  degree  the  woods — the 
woods,  always,  to  a  child,  that  fearsome 
place.  One  June  day  (it  must  have  been, 
from  my  friend's  account)  this  boy,  a  mile 
from  home,  far  enough  to  be  in  very  depths 
of  strangeness,  was  going  with  tense  drawn 
nerves  at  boy's  pace  through  a  chestnut  for- 
est. The  place  was  flooded  with  sunshine, 
radiant  with  all  greeneries,  redolent  of 
young  summer,  a  paradise,  but  for  the  awe- 
someness.  It  would  not,  however,  be  an 
evil  spirit  that  would  come  out  upon  one  at 
such  a  time,  but  rather  some  fair  lady,  ex- 
ceeding rich  and  beautiful,  who  dwelt  lonely 
in  deep  forest  grotto  and  would  be  seeking 
some  boy  whom  she  might  adopt  and  make 
him  rich  and  famous.  With  such  fancies 
prancing  through  his  brain,  of  a  sudden, 
from  on  high,  bell-notes,  so  clear,  mellow, 
sweet  and  round  as  mortal  ear  had  never 


WISDOM   NEVER  LEARNED  OF  SCHOOLS  15 

heard!  It  was  the  lad's  first  Introduction 
to  the  hermit  thrush ;  but  you  could  not  per- 
suade his  quickened  nerves  it  was  a  bird! 
No  bird  could  make  a  fellow's  heart  go  that 
way.  And  he  had  looked  for  it  long  and 
well;  the  sounds  would  continue  until  he 
came  within  a  stone's  throw  of  the  place, 
then  cease  and  anon  fall  from  some  other 
quarter.  It  was  quickly  established  in  his 
mind  that  this  was  none  other  than  a  visi- 
tant from  heaven.  And  thence-forward 
the  woods  to  him  were  full  of  them.  He 
could  not  detail  this  encounter  back  at  home, 
he  would  only  get  laughed  at  for  his 
fright.  And  so  the  illusion  remained  with 
all  its  brilliant  impressiveness  unremoved. 
And  my  friend  assures  me  this  simple  in- 
cident in  the  woods  proved  to  be  a  turning 
point  in  his  life;  that  bird  song  was  the  key 
which  began  to  unlock  certain  new  faculties 
within  him;  the  nature  faculties,  he  calls 
them  now.  He  goes  further  and  avers  that 
to  his  childhood's  Sunday-to-meeting  rides, 
and  to  this  vision  out  of  the  empyrean  he 
ascribes  his  very  salvation.  That  is  draw- 
ing it  rather  strongly.  But,  while  some- 
times I  have  felt  inclined  to  question  in  my 
mind  as  to  how  far  my  friend's  salvation 
has  really  gone — nevertheless  such  odds  and 
ends,  such  rags  and  tatters  of  it  as  he  has 
attained  to,  I  can  well  believe  did  have  their 
beginnings  in  these  and  other  like  intima- 
tions lent  by  Nature.     And  I  am  sure  that 


l6  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

thousands  and  thousands  of  other  boys  and 
girls  have  been  wrought  upon  in  similar 
ways,  which,  if  not  so  fantastic  as  in  the  case 
of  my  friend,  were  quite  as  real  and  dom- 
inating. 

In  spite  of  the  advantages  and  life-long  gains 
of  life  on  a  farm  in  the  early  half  of  the  last 
century,  it  must  now  be  added — as  evidenced  by 
all  the  sons  of  Thomas  McLean,  including  John 
— that  the  farm  of  that  day  was  not  only  a  good 
place  to  be  brought  up  upon  but  a  good  place 
to  go  from.  "Well,  Johnny,  you're  going  to 
stay  on  the  farm,"  it  used  to  be  said  to  him. 
But  it  proved  otherwise.  "Plowing  and  all 
that,"  as  he  once  summed  it  up — well,  that  was 
the  other  side. 

Owing  partly  to  the  fact  that  one  of  his  uncles 
was  the  occupant  of  a  seat  on  the  bench  and  to 
something  akin  in  the  boy  himself,  John,  as  a 
little  fellow,  was  often  dubbed  "Judge,"  to 
which  he  would  reply  with  spirit,  "If  you  don't 
stop,  I  will  be  a  judge."  In  fact  his  ambition 
began  to  turn  strongly  toward  the  Law.  With 
this  or  some  kindred  service  as  an  objective, 
he  began  to  give  earnest  attention  to  his  edu- 
cation. Leaving  the  district  school  at  the  age 
of  sixteen,  he  commenced  teaching  in  order  to 
continue  his  education — a  kind  of  teach-to-learn 
system  then  quite  in  vogue. 

The  self-impartatlon  which  was  to  be  the 
principle  of  his  life  began  In  the  district  school 
in  a  neighboring  town,  where  he  "boarded 
round"  and  taught  twenty-one  scholars  of  all 


WISDOM   NEVER  LEARNED  OF  SCHOOLS  ^7 

grades  and  ages  at  a  salary  of  sixteen  dollars 
a  month,  and  "liked  It."  What  wonder,  when  he 
had  already  fallen  under  the  spell  of  an  attrac- 
tive maiden  whom  he  had  met  at  the  Academy 
and  who  lived  not  far  away?  Of  which  more, 
later. 

With  that  Indomitable  energy  and  Inexhausti- 
ble physical  and  mental  resourcefulness  pos- 
sessed by  the  ambitious  farmer  boy,  John  Mc- 
Lean pushed  his  way  ahead  until  he  was  pre- 
pared to  enter  college  and  not  only  that  but  to 
enter  the  Sophomore  class.  This  he  did  In  1855 
at  Union  College,  then  under  the  presidency  of 
the  famous  educator  and  friend  of  young  men, 
Ellphalet  Nott. 

It  Is  a  familiar  story  In  our  American  life  In 
the  last  century — this  of  the  farmer's  boy,  mak- 
ing his  way  over  obstacles  and  hardships  to 
college — familiar,  but  never  lacking  In  Interest 
and  romance.  For  we  know  that  something 
will  surely  come  of  It. 

It  was  one  of  Dr.  McLean's  acknowledged 
and  defended  habits  to  get  his  knowledge  from 
life  and  from  contact  with  his  fellow  men  rather 
than  from  books.  And  yet  he  honored,  and  to 
a  degree  practiced,  the  book  and  school  method, 
also,  though  never  giving  It  the  relative  rank 
which  It  holds  among  the  pedantic.  To  the 
'^wisdom  never  learned  of  schools"  he  added 
that  of  the  schools. 

College  meant  much  to  him — yet  not  Its  text- 
books and  teachers,  so  much  as  Its  atmosphere 
and   comradeships.     "The   great   college   com- 


l8  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

plex  is  what  tells  upon  the  student,"  he  wrote, 
long  years  afterward.  The  pages  of  his  col- 
lege autograph  album  tell  something  of  the 
story  of  the  place  that  "Mac"  held  In  the  hearts 
of  his  fellow  students,  and  his  election  to  Phi 
Beta  Kappa  attests  the  quality  of  his  scholarship. 
Among  his  college  mates  were  his  friends  and 
associates  of  later  years.  Dr.  Warring  Wilkinson 
and  Principal  J.  B.  McChesney. 

It  was  during  his  college  course  that  the  re- 
ligious aspirations  of  his  boyhood  matured  into 
firm  conviction,  and  on  the  twenty-seventh  of 
June,  1858,  a  month  before  his  graduation,  he 
united  with  the  Presbyterian  Church  of  Sche- 
nectady. With  this  step  came  the  determina- 
tion to  enter  the  ministry,  an  increasing  call  to 
which  he  had  felt  as  he  studied  his  own  heart, 
the  needs  of  humanity  and  the  opportunities  of 
doing  good.  In  the  September  following  his 
graduation  from  Union  College,  Mr.  McLean 
entered  Princeton  Theological  Seminary.  Here 
he  adapted  himself  to  the  scholastic  atmosphere, 
took  the  entire  course,  duly  and  creditably — and 
had  his  note-books  as  well  as  a  considerable  ac- 
quirement of  "sound"  theology,  to  show  for  it. 

One  more  ordeal  and,  his  novitiate  passed,  the 
young  minister  was  ready  to  enter  into  his  chosen 
work.  This  was  his  examination  for  licensure, 
which  took  place  before  the  Albany  Presby- 
tery at  Schenectady,  May  i,  i860.  The  "parts 
of  the  trial"  were:  Sermon,  Heb.  2:10;  Popu- 
lar Lecture,  Rom.  9  :  14-2 1 ;  Exegesis,  Gal.  3:21- 
29 ;  Thesis  (Latin)  An  Sit  Deus  Auctor  Peccati. 


WISDOM    NEVER  LEARNED  OF  SCHOOLS  IQ 

These  papers  are  in  the  possession  of  Pacific 
Theological  Seminary  Library,  and  show,  as 
might  be  expected,  somewhat  formal  but  care- 
ful and  scholarly  work.  The  issue  was  favor- 
able. The  guardians  of  the  Faith  were  satis- 
fied. The  arduous  hill  of  theological  learning 
was  surmounted.  With  the  final  stamp  of  ap- 
proval of  the  schools  upon  him,  in  his  gradua- 
tion from  the  Seminary,  April  23,  1861,  the 
stalwart  young  theologian  went  out  "not  know- 
ing whither  he  went,"  to  try  his  yet  untested  pow- 
ers in  the  service  of  the  Lord  of  the  Vineyard. 
For  several  months  he  preached  in  various  small 
churches  in  New  York  and  New  Jersey,  and.  In 
the  spring  of  1861,  became  pastor  of  the  Con- 
gregational Church  of  Fair  Haven,  Connecticut. 
As  yet,  and  for  some  years  to  come  (as  his 
note  books  clearly  Indicate),  he  failed  to  enter 
into  the  full  freedom  and  scope  of  the  truth  and 
life  of  Christianity.  Conventionality  hemmed 
him  In.  The  wisdom  never  learned  of  schools 
was  too  far  suppressed  by  the  wisdom  of  the 
schools;  but  as  he  gave  himself  to  his  w^ork  and 
as  he  studied  humanity  and  nature  and  his  Bi- 
ble, gradually  the  native  originality  and  power 
latent  within  him  developed  and  he  passed  Into 
the  strength  and  freedom  of  an  ever-enlarging 
ministry. 


CHAPTER  11. 

THROUGH  LOWLY  DOORS  OF  SERVICE. 

At  a  time  like  our  own,  when  the  opportuni- 
ties of  the  Christian  ministry  are  questioned  by 
many,  it  gives  one  fresh  confidence  in  it  to  re- 
view so  signally  attractive  and  influential  a  pas- 
toral service  as  that  of  John  K.  McLean. 

The  foundations  of  this  success  were  laid  in 
the  town  of  Framingham,  Massachusetts, 
whither — after  a  brief  service  of  the  Congre- 
gational Church  of  Fair  Haven,  Connecticut 
(June  5,  1861,  to  October  27,  1862) — he  was 
called  to  become  pastor  of  the  HoUis  Evangeli- 
cal Congregational  Church,  January  twenty- 
sixth,  1863,  over  which  he  was  installed  on  the 
nineteenth  day  of  the  ensuing  February. 

There  was  nothing  conspicuous  or  unusual  in 
the  manner  in  which  the  young  pastor  began  his 
work.  He  did  not  do  that  for  which  in  later 
years  he  criticised  a  young  minister,  "attempt- 
ing a  lot  of  new  things  before  he  had  come  to 
know  his  people."  On  the  contrary  he  went 
very  quietly  and  modestly  to  work  to  understand 
and  serve  his  parish  and  community.  The  care 
and  devotion  with  which  he  accomplished  this 
is  indicated  by  such  incidental  evidence  as  that 
contained  in  a  letter  to  him  from  the  veteran 
pastor,  Dr.  Nehemiah  Adams  of  Boston,  who 
wrote  in  answer  to  an  inquiry  sent  him  by  Mr. 
McLean  concerning  a  member  of  his  parish :    "I 


THROUGH    LOWLY   DOORS    OF    SERVICE  21 

wish  that  all  were  as  careful  as  you  are,  dear 
Brother,  as  to  whom  they  admit."  This  care- 
fulness, however,  was  on  the  score  of  character 
rather  than  of  orthodoxy. 

The  strong  and  vital  interest  of  the  young 
pastor  in  the  larger  concerns  of  the  community, 
as  well  as  of  his  own  church,  and  at  the  same 
time  his  sturdy  independence  and  common  sense, 
are  indicated  in  a  vigorous  address  (afterward 
printed)  given  by  him  at  a  meeting  of  the  Wor- 
cester and  Middlesex  Temperance  Union,  in 
which  he  laid  stress  upon  the  power  of  public 
opinion  as  an  absolute  necessity  for  securing  tem- 
perance reform. 

What  we  need  for  an  effectual  opposition 
to  Intemperance,  to  put  a  check  and  finally 
a  stay  upon  it,  is  public  opinion — a  good 
and  sufficient  motive  power,  but  beyond 
that,  strong  laws.  *  *  *  l^^  ^g  pgj., 
feet  our  law  in  every  detail — bring  our  ut- 
most Yankee  Ingenuity  to  bear  upon  it. 
Then  let  us  *  *  *  turn  the  whole 
might  of  this  tremendous  power,  which 
God  has  given  us  wherewith  to  do  Him 
service,  In  upon  the  machinery  of  law. 

Still  more  Indicative  of  his  public-spirit  and 
patriotism,  as  well  as  of  his  patience  and  charity 
for  those  under  criticism,  was  a  notable  Fast  Day 
Sermon,  preached  by  Mr.  McLean  at  Framing- 
ham,  April  30,  1863,  and  published  by  request. 
In  this  sermon  the  young  preacher  boldly  re- 
buked the  spirit  of  complaint  and  gloom  then 
so  rife,  declaring: 


22  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

We  are  unduly  despondent  In  view  of  the 
real  and  exaggerated  dangers  of  our  situa- 
tion. We  are  distrusting  God's  power  and 
willingness  to  deliver  us  and  give  us  victory. 
We  are  allowing  ourselves  to  grumble  over 
the  hardships  and  evils  incident  to  our  situ- 
ation, and  are  both  directly  and  indirectly 
complaining  at  the  allotments  of  God's 
providence.  We  are  practically  opposing 
the  authority  of  our  legitimately  constituted 
rulers,  and  seeking  to  subvert  their  lawful 
authority.  *  *  *  I  do  not  mean  to  be 
understood  as  saying  that  we  are  bound  to 
submit  to  whatever  our  rulers  may  impose 
upon  us,  in  silent,  meek  acquiescence;  that 
we  are  to  believe  all  their  measures  to  be  the 
wisest,  best  and  most  effective  possible;  or 
that  we  are  never  to  presume  to  criticise  or 
express  a  dissenting  judgment.  What  I 
mean  is,  that  in  such  a  complicated  Govern- 
ment as  ours,  in  such  an  unprecedented  em- 
ergency as  this,  it  is  utterly  impossible  but 
that  mistakes  should  be  made;  and  it  is  not 
wrong  for  those  who  are  capable  of  doing 
It,  to  criticise  these,  openly  and  fully.  But 
this  should  be  done  fairly;  It  should  be  done 
intelligently;  It  should,  above  all,  be  done 
charitably ;  keeping  In  mind  the  vast  differ- 
ence there  Is  between  sitting,  coolly,  safely, 
at  a  distance,  and  watching  the  progress  of 
events,  with  nothing  to  do  but  watch;  and 
plunging  Into  the  thick  fray,  and  ourselves 
shaping  events  there,  amid  the  turmoil  and 


THROUGH    LOWLY   DOORS   OF    SERVICE  23 

confusion,  the  heat  and  dust  and  smoke  and 
blood  of  actual  conflict.  We  may  judge 
our  public  men  and  their  measures;  but  we 
should,  in  doing  it,  use  that  same  charity  the 
gospel  enjoins  upon  us  to  exercise  toward 
our  neighbor.  But  for  the  people  to  give 
themselves  up  to  indiscriminate,  querulous, 
discontented  complaint — that  is  a  wrong 
and  a  sin.  The  same  wrong  and  sin,  today, 
as  it  was  in  the  day  of  Moses  and  Joshua 
and  Caleb.  Such  conduct,  at  the  best  of 
times  is  folly,  is  sinful.  At  this  time,  it  is 
more ;  it  is  a  most  grievous  sin,  next  door  to 
treason ! 

The  Framingham  pastorate  was  not  so  much 
interrupted  as  supplemented  by  the  service  per- 
formed by  Mr.  McLean  under  the  United  States 
Christian  Commission  at  City  Point,  Virginia, 
from  January  to  March,  1865.  In  this  minis- 
try of  good  will  he  was  aided  by  one  of  the  dea- 
cons of  his  church,  Mr.  G.  W.  Bigelow.  The 
little  journal  relating  their  experience  is  full  of 
interesting  glimpses  of  our  soldiers  in  camp  and 
incidentally  of  the  service  w^hich  was  done  for 
them,  in  writing  letters,  distributing  Christian 
literature,  holding  sendees,  and  ministering  to 
discomforts  and  ailments,  physical  and  mental. 
The  air,  blue  with  oaths,  cleared  at  the  presence 
of  this  pastor  and  deacon;  men  who  were  try- 
ing hard  to  lead  a  Christian  life  under  stress 
were  enheartened,  and,  under  the  encouragement 
of  their  words,  some  struck  out  for  a  higher 
life.     Carefully  treasured  among  Dr.  McLean's 


24  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

letters  are  several  In  yellow  envelopes,  marked 
"Soldiers'  Letters,"  full  of  characteristic  sol- 
diers' thanks  and  good  will  for  help  and  sym- 
pathy received. 

The  following  record  of  a  day  In  camp  gives 
a  snap-shot  of  the  work  of  the  Commission  and 
of  the  method  and  spirit  of  this  particular  man 
In  the  doing  of  it: 

Up  at  seven.  Prayers.  Wrote  letter  for 
Robinson  to  Mrs.  Hathaway  concerning 
her  son  Charles,  sick  in  hospital.  Gave 
Gould  can  condensed  milk.  Breakfast. 
Calls  at  door  for  paper,  newspapers,  en- 
velopes. Ink,  thread.  Wrote  letter  for 
James  Brown  to  sister.  Sold  stamps.  Gave 
painkiller  to  green  man  for  ague  and  kid- 
ney complaint.  Major  and  Mrs.  Tucker 
called.  Walk  Into  Headquarters  for  mail 
and  nails.    Stayed  to  dinner.    Going  in  met 

about  a  furlough ;  showed  me  a  letter 

from  his  wife;  his  little  girl  sick.  Back  at 
three.  Fixing  cannons.  Called  at  Major 
Tucker's.  Gave  tracts  to  ten  men,  recruits, 
testaments  to  some.  Sold  stamps  to  three  or 
four.  Took  ten  dollars  in  state  bills  to  ex- 
change for  U.  S.  Received  $2.00  for  Chris- 
tian Commission,  $1.00  for  stamps,  $2.00 

to  get  a  writing  book  for .     Supper. 

Painkiller  to  boy  for  swelled  face.  Took 
pocket  books  for  two  boys  to  keep.  Franked 
letter.  Lent  magazines.  Preached;  Prov. 
I ;  eight  or  nine  soldiers  spoke.  Nine  or 
ten  rose   for  prayers.     Talk  with  Miller 


THROUGH    LOWLY   DOORS   OF    SERVICE  25 

till   quarter  to  ten.     Outbreak  in  chapel. 

Picket-picking.      Gave  lantern  to  hang  in 

chapel.       Man  with  swelled  face.      Picket 

fires  on  hill. 

The  Framingham  pastorate  of  four  years  was 
laid  down  in  July,  1867,  to  accept  a  reiterated 
call  to  the  Congregational  Church  of  Spring- 
field, Illinois.  This  call  resulted  from  a  visit  to 
that  city  which  Mr.  McLean  had  made  in  the 
course  of  a  journey  to  "The  West."  For 
Springfield  was  at  that  time  regarded  as  a  west- 
ern city,  full  of  enterprise  and  hopefulness  as 
the  capital  of  an  opulent  and  growing  state.  It 
was  no  accident  that  led  this  man  to  turn  his 
face  westward.  All  that  was  best  in  the  "west- 
ern spirit"  awoke  a  response  within  him.  He 
left  the  shadowy  elms  and  saintly  characters  of 
New  England  with  regret,  bearing  with  him 
many  evidences  of  affection  and  gratitude,  but 
convinced  that  his  life  work  lay  in  the  needier 
and  more  promising  West. 

The  church  in  Springfield  had  been  but  re- 
cently organized.  It  was  worshiping  in  a  room 
in  the  State  Capitol  building.  The  community 
was  as  yet  somewhat  inchoate,  outwardly  and  in- 
wardly. There  was  limitless  work  to  be  done, 
limitless  opportunity.  The  life  was  vital  and 
pliable.  The  situation  called  out  the  best  in  the 
virile  young  minister.  It  was  the  turning  point 
in  his  ministerial  life,  as  he  himself  recognized 
in  looking  back. 

Four  years  after  his  going  to  Springfield,  Mr. 
McLean  wrote  to  the  Framingham  Gazette  sev- 


26  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

eral  chatty  letters  In  which  Incidentally  he  drew 
so  life-like  a  picture  of  the  two  towns,  one  so 
typical  of  the  New  England  of  that  day  and 
the  other  of  *'The  West,"  that  two  or  three 
extracts  are  here  given,  both  for  the  sake  of 
their  own  Interest  and  their  reflection  of  the 
spirit  of  the  writer. 

Messrs.  Editors:  For  the  twenty  and 
more  weeks  that  your  paper  has  appeared,  a 
regular  Monday  morning  visitor  at  my 
home,  with  Its  large  bundle  of  Framlngham 
news  to  unfold,  and  displaying  before  our 
eyes  Its  array  of  familiar  names.  It  has  been 
In  my  mind  to  drop  you  a  line,  if  no  more 
than  to  tell  you  how  welcome  the  visitor 
has  been  and  how  like  an  old  familiar  friend 
it  seems,  In  this  far  off  place. 

We  take  our  regular  Monday  morning 
drive  about  old  Framlngham  by  this  means, 
stopping  here  and  there  to  look  off  at  some 
of  Its  beautiful,  well-remembered  views; 
chatting  here  and  there  with  a  friend;  see- 
ing who  Is  building  new,  who  Is  repairing 
old,  who  Is  painting  over  and  whose  new 
fence  Is  building.  For  a  half  hour  each 
week  we  thus  live  once  more  back  amid  the 
old  scenes  and  cherished  fields.  But  then,  a 
look  out  of  the  window  disenchants  us,  and 
we  are  again  on  the  flat  and  boundless 
prairie;  the  matter-of-fact,  bustling,  push- 
ing West  has  reclaimed  us. 

How  we  are  carried  back  to  the  old 
Town  Hall  (wonder  If  It  has  ever  received 


THROUGH    LOWLY   DOORS   OF    SERVICE  V 

that  fresh  coat  of  white  paint  and  graining 
that  selectman  Hurd  aspired  to  see,  re- 
moving somewhat  Its  suspicion  of  dlngi- 
ness),  back  to  those  preliminary  meetings 
down  stairs  when  a  self-constituted  "Lec- 
ture Committee"  met  to  discuss  the  possi- 
bility of  a  "first  class"  course  In  Framing- 
ham;  to  the  crowded  array  of  upturned 
faces,  glowing  and  corruscating  under  WIl- 
lett's  "Sunshine,"  wrapped  In  wonder  at 
Curtin's  gleaming  sentences,  or  listening 
gravely  to  Bellows  and  Manning  and 
Holmes  and  the  rest.  And  then,  can  I 
ever  read  of  lectures  to  be  heard  In  Fram- 
ingham  without  remembering  with  tumultu- 
ous gladness  those  after-lecture  "choco- 
lates" which  sent  their  grateful  steam  of 
fragrance  up  around  the  lecturer's  head — 
what  time  story,  repartee  and  "laughter 
unextlnguishable"  manifested  Itself  there- 
with? I  hope  not;  even  though  to  remem- 
ber must  forever  now  leave,  after  the  glad- 
ness, a  sadness  full  as  deep. 

Perhaps  Framingham  would  not  object 
to  making  the  acquaintance  of  this  town. 
We  have  no  bushy  lanes  to  take  you 
through,  we  have  no  smiling  Concord, 
we've  no  tree-crowned  acclivities,  no  Bare 
Hill  nor  Normal  Hill  to  show  you  sunsets 
from ;  nevertheless,  some  things  which  even 
such  a  petted  beauty  might  think  worth 
looking  at. 


28  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

And  now,  Miss  Framingham,  if  I  may  have 
the  pleasure,  this  is  Springfield,  Illinois. 
Twenty-one  years  old  last  February;  with 
a  population,  within  the  two  miles  square  of 
city  limits,  of  17,500;  in  the  township  of 
20,000. 

The  chief  interest  which  any  stranger 
takes  in  our  city,  of  course  centers  about 
the  name  and  home  of  Abraham  Lincoln. 
We  will  go  there  first.  It  is  but  a  short 
distance  from  the  center  of  the  city,  no 
more  than  six  or  seven  blocks,  on  the  cor- 
ner of  Jackson  and  Eighth  streets,  a  plain, 
unpretending  structure,  standing  close  upon 
the  street.  You  have  seen  the  picture  of  it, 
doubtless,  so  I  need  not  describe  it. 

As  we  pass  back  from  the  Lincoln  house 
to  the  public  square,  we  step  into  South 
Sixth  street;  which  is,  on  the  whole,  the 
handsomest  street.  It  stretches  for  more 
than  a  mile  out  south  of  us,  lined  on  either 
side  with  roomy,  substantial  and  some  very 
elegant  and  expensive  houses.  Each  house 
has  a  quite  large  lawn  about  it,  well  kept 
and  filled  with  shrubbery.  In  May  and 
early  June,  while  roses  are  in  bloom,  this 
street  and  some  others  are  even  marvelous- 
ly  beautiful  with  their  wealth  of  color  and 
perfume.  In  December  it  is  not  especially 
inviting.  As  we  pass  through  it  today,  the 
street  is  dry  and  dusty  as  summer,  and  the 
wind  hurls  clouds  of  dust  down  toward  us. 
In    December  usually    it  is    anything    but 


JOHN   KNOX  McLEAN 

AT  FIFIY-FIVE 


THROUGH    LOWLY   DOORS   OF    SERVICE  29 

dusty — mud,  deep,  fat  and  black,  holds  al- 
most  undisputed    sway.      ***** 
Well,  we  have  little  more  to  show  you. 
Our  seven  railroads  now  running,  with  two 
others  in  construction,  and  three  more  pro- 
jected would  be  no  rarity.     Nor  our  nine- 
teen churches,  nor  our  fine  Leland  Hotel. 
Framingham,  as  Westerners  say,  "don't  go 
much  on  hotels,  no  how."     There  is  noth- 
ing else  of  interest  except  our  coal  shafts 
and  I  doubt  whether  Beauty  would  care  to 
descend  one  of  those — 200  feet  in  a  black 
basket  into  a  black  hole !     We  have  four  of 
these  just  outside  our  city,  each  lifting  two 
to  four  thousand  bushels  daily.     *      *     * 
And  now,  my  dear  Framingham,  good  bye. 
Do  come  and  see  us  again  soon.     We  will 
have  some  more  things  to  show  you,  I  hope. 
If  you  should  conclude  to  move  West,  we 
have  a  few,  a  very  few  choice  building  lots 
left,  which  to  YOU,  we  would  dispose  of 
on  very  easy  terms.     We  want  no  more  set- 
tlers now  except  choice  ones. 
It  was  not  long  before  a  church  building  had 
been  constructed  with  special  adaptation  to  the 
work  of  the  Sunday  School,  which  was  under 
the  enterprising  leadership  of  Mr.  Herbert  Post, 
"the  seats  in  which,  by  a  unanimous  vote,  are  all 
to  he  free^  as  the  Springfield  daily  paper  an- 
nounced in  italics.     The  adoption  of  free  seats 
is  indicative  of  the  democratic  character  of  the 
sympathies  of  the  pastor.     It  was  one  of  the 
qualities  that  brought  him  into  touch  with  the 
people. 


30  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

No  man's  success  or  failure — that  Is,  no  mar- 
ried man's — can  be  understood  without  taking 
into  account  that  great  factor  In  his  personal 
equation, — '^the  Mrs."  as  certain  wise,  if  un- 
educated, persons  call  her.  The  mistress  she 
often  Is,  the  maker,  or  at  least  the  moulder,  of  a 
man's  character  and  career.  Especially  potent 
In  her  influence  Is  the  mistress  of  the  manse. 

In  Sarah  Matilda  Hawley,  of  Salem,  New 
York — between  whom  and  himself  the  first  tie 
had  been  formed  in  the  romantic  days  of  school 
life — whom  he  married  June  twenty-sixth,  1861, 
Pastor  McLean  found  a  comrade  and  co-worker 
of  such  character  and  such  rare  gifts  and  graces 
that  he  might  have  said  of  her  as  did  Ferdinand 
of  Miranda,  "of  whom  I  gained  a  second  life." 
A  member  of  the  Springfield  church  wrote  of 
her: 

She  came  among  us  a  stranger,  but  was 
soon  known,  through  the  fascination  of  her 
character  and  personal  appearance.  With 
grace  and  graciousness  of  manner,  she  Im- 
mediately attracted  and  ever  continued  to 
win,  as  the  qualities  of  her  mind  were  dis- 
covered. She  was  very  attractive  to  the 
young.  Happy  are  the  memories  of  sunny 
days  spent  at  the  parsonage.  The  Infants 
of  the  church,  too,  could  lisp  her  praise  and 
tell  of  the  wide-spread  table  to  which  they 
exclusively  were  invited.  Over  all  she  ex- 
ercised a  healthy  influence  for  good  through 
her  refinement,  both  of  nature  and  of  cul- 
ture.    Her  modest  and  unpretending  home 


THROUGH   LOWLY  DOORS   OF   SERVICE  31 

was  made  artistic  and  beautiful  by  the  taste 
of  its  arrangements,  and  though  inexpen- 
sively adorned,  would  attract  the  attention 
of  the  most  fastidious.  The  spiritual  ele- 
ments of  her  character,  added  to  these  other 
qualities,  made  a  completeness  not  often 
found/ 

With  these  two  leading  it,  no  wonder  the 
Springfield  church  prospered.  The  congrega- 
tion grew;  the  influence  of  the  church  widened 
and  deepened.  In  a  very  true  sense  It  was  a 
successful  pastorate.  The  pastor  had  passed 
through  lowly  doors  of  service  into  a  large  place 
of  influence  and  power. 

The  gifted  and  eloquent  John  Henry  Barrows, 
who  was  Mr.  McLean's  successor  In  the  pastor- 
ate of  the  Springfield  church,  once  summed  up 
the  latter's  influence  in  Springfield  In  the  fol- 
lowing words : 

John  Knox  McLean  came  in  the  fulness 
of  the  blessing  of  the  Gospel  of  Christ 
and  brought  with  him  an  energy  that  led 
and  inspired  your  own — an  executive  and 
managing  ability  that  is  rarely  equalled  in 
the  ministerial  or  any  other  calling,  and  an 
independence  of  thought  that  kindled  the 
respect  of  people  accustomed  to  think  for 
themselves.  He  spoke  out  his  own  views 
boldly  and  you  liked  him  for  It.  He 
scolded  you  roundly  and  you  knew  that  love 
was  behind  the  censure.  You  leaned  con- 
fidingly on  his  strength  and  permitted  him 
to  do  many  things  which,  as  he  now  be- 


1  Church  Record,  Vol.  XIV,  No.  9. 


32  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

lleves,  you  ought  to  have  done  yourselves. 
Around  him  clustered  all  the  activities  of 
this  young  church.  He  accomplished  for 
you  and  for  this  community,  and  for  the 
churches  of  Christ  in  this  region,  a  work 
which  has  made  his  memory  a  blossoming 
fragrance  In  many  hearts.  The  pulpit  will 
never  be  deemed  a  decaying  Institution,  a 
relic  of  former  power,  so  long  as  It  Is 
filled  with  manly,  devoted,  well-trained, 
capable  and  progressive  men — of  which 
class  your  pastor  was  a  noble  type.  May  I 
not  rightly  apply  to  him  the  words  in  which 
our  greatest  poet  sings  of  another  Spring- 
field citizen: 

"How  beautiful  to  see 
Once  more  a  shepherd  of  mankind  Indeed, 
***** 

One  whose  meek  flock  the  people  joyed  to  be. 
Not  lured  by  any  cheat  of  birth. 

But  by  his  clear-grained  human  worth 
And  brave  old  wisdom  of  sincerity." 


CHAPTER  III. 

A  PASTORATE  OF  POWER. 

In  the  summer  of  1871  Mr.  McLean  made  a 
visit  to  California.  He  was  a  traveler  always, 
ardently  fond  of  scenery  and  deeply  interested 
in  humanity  in  all  its  types  and  activities.  He 
had  followed  the  construction  of  the  trans-con- 
tinental railroad  with  great  interest,  had  already 
been  as  far  as  Omaha  in  the  service  of  expand- 
ing Congregationalism,  and  was  eager  to  see 
the  new  world  that  lay  beyond  the  great  ram- 
part of  the  Sierra  Nevada.  The  reality  far  ex- 
ceeded his  anticipations.  He  was  delighted  with 
the  splendors  of  the  rich  and  wonderful  land 
that  sloped  from  the  Sierra  to  the  Pacific.  Not 
that  he  coveted  it  for  his  own,  or  cherished  a 
thought  of  disloyalty  to  his  Illinois  home,  but 
there  was  henceforth  a  glamor  over  California 
which  exercised  a  strong  drawing  In  that  direc- 
tion. He  was  Impressed,  too,  by  the  great  need 
and  opportunity  for  religious  work  which  It  af- 
forded. 

When,  therefore,  a  call  came  to  him,  not 
long  after,  to  the  pastorate  of  the  First  Congre- 
gational Church  of  Oakland,  whose  pulpit  he 
had  supplied  for  several  Sundays  during  his 
stay  In  San  Francisco,  his  heart  responded.  But 
he  felt  deeply  the  ties  which  bound  him  to  his 
Springfield  church  and  declined  the  invitation. 
When,  however,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Springfield 


34  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

church,  the  call  was  urgently  renewed,  accompa- 
nied by  letters  which  showed  that  the  leaders  of 
the  church  felt  very  strongly  that  he  was  the 
man  under  whom  they  could  best  fulfill  their 
task,  he  yielded  to  their  conviction  and  his  own 
desire  and  accepted  the  call. 

The  Oakland  church  at  that  time  had  had  a 
brief  but  promising  career.  Its  history,  as  out- 
lined by  Deacon  Edward  P.  Flint  (one  of  its 
earliest  and  most  active  members)  at  the  cele- 
bration of  its  fiftieth  anniversary  is,  in  part,  as 
follows : 

In  December,  i860,  the  First  Congrega- 
tional Church  was  organized,  by  seventeen 
persons.  They  were  a  little  band  of  earnest 
devoted  Christians,  who  freely  gave  their 
time  and  substance  to  the  service  of  the 
Lord,  and  I  have  always  felt  that  the  high 
character  and  success  of  the  church  from  the 
beginning  until  now  has  been  due  to  the  fine 
character  and  loving  spirit  of  its  founders 
and  their  successors.  I  have  never  known 
a  church  so  wisely  administered,  and  with 
such  harmony  and  unanimity  of  action  on 
all  subjects.  For  the  first  year,  in  1861, 
church  services  were  held  in  a  small  build- 
ing erected  by  the  city  on  the  Fourth  street 
side  of  a  public  square  on  which  the  county 
court  house  now  stands.  The  roof  of  the 
pavilion  was  so  leaky  that  umbrellas  were 
sometimes  raised,  and  it  was  understood 
that  on  stormy  Sundays  services  would  be 
omitted. 


A    PASTORATE    OF    POWER  35 

Rev.  George  Mooar,  pastor  of  South 
Congregational  Church  In  Andover,  Mass., 
accepted  the  call  of  the  church  to  become  its 
minister,  and  arrived  In  San  Francisco  by 
steamer  via  Panama,  May  6,  1 8 6 1 ,  with  his 
family.  Soon  afterwards,  by  the  favor  of 
a  few  members,  aided  by  F.  K.  Shattuck, 
who,  though  not  a  member,  was  a  warm 
friend  of  the  church  from  the  beginning,  the 
church  was  enabled  to  purchase  the  block  of 
land  lying  between  Broadway  and  Wash- 
ington and  Tenth  and  Eleventh  streets,  for 
the  sum  of  $14,000.  On  this  lot,  fronting 
on  Broadway,  was  erected  a  building  which 
cost  between  $8,000  and  $10,000.  It  was 
completed  and  occupied  March  22,  1862. 

A  very  pleasing  custom  was  Inaugurated 
by  the  church  people,  and  was  continued  for 
several  years.  The  men  gathered  at  the 
church  on  New  Year's  morning,  bringing 
their  garden  tools,  and  made  a  complete 
clearing  up  of  the  grounds,  which  was  quite 
a  job  on  the  block  of  200  by  300  feet.  The 
wives  and  daughters  w^ere  also  on  hand  to 
provide  an  ample  luncheon.  The  sight  of 
these  people  beautifying  the  garden  of  the 
church  was  Interesting,  and  declared  their 
love  for  the  Lord's  house.     *      *      *      * 

In  the  summer  of  1871  we  heard  that 
Rev.  John  K.  McLean,  pastor  of  the 
Congregational  Church  in  Springfield,  111., 
was  visiting  California  with  a  party,  and  we 
succeeded  in  securing  his  services  for  sev- 


36  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

eral  Sundays.  The  church  became  inter- 
ested in  him,  and  after  his  return  to  Illinois 
a  call  was  sent  to  him,  which  he  at  first  de- 
clined, but  after  a  renewal  of  the  call  it 
was  accepted,  and  Mr.  McLean  removed  to 
Oakland  with  his  wife  in  April,  1872,  and 
was  soon  after  installed  as  our  pastor,  con- 
tinuing in  this  relation  to  the  church  until 
April,  1895,  a  period  of  23  years. 

From  this  time  the  membership  of  the 
church  grew  rapidly,  and  in  1877  it  was 
found  that  a  new  church  edifice  was  needed 
and  could  not  be  built  too  soon.  Half  of  a 
block  of  land,  fronting  200  feet  on  Clay 
street,  and  150  feet  on  Twelfth  and  Thir- 
teenth, was  purchased  for  $20,000.  A  pay- 
ment was  made  on  it  from  funds  in  the 
treasury,  the  money  required  for  the  build- 
ing to  be  provided  by  a  sale  of  the  land  at 
the  corner  of  Washington  and  Tenth 
streets.  Plans  for  the  new  building  were 
obtained  from  a  noted  architect  in  New 
York  through  personal  interviews  by  the 
pastor  and  one  of  the  trustees,  who  met  for 
this  purpose  in  New  York.  The  chapel  of 
the  church  was  finished  and  occupied  Oc- 
tober 14,  1878,  and  the  auditorium  was  en- 
tered January  12,  1879.  The  total  cost 
of  the  building  with  the  pews  and  furniture 
was  about  $80,000;  and  today,  after  thirty- 
three  years  of  service,  it  is  in  as  good  con- 
dition as  ever. 


A  PASTORATE  OF  POWER  Zl 

This  story  of  the  church  organization  and 
building  is  the  outer  counterpart  of  an  inner  up- 
building of  a  remarkable  nature,  begun  under 
the  pastorate  of  Dr.  Mooar  and  carried  on  un- 
der that  of  Dr.  McLean. 

Dr.  McLean's  Oakland  pastorate  of  twenty- 
three  years  was  in  all  respects  a  rich,  in  many 
respects  a  great,  pastorate.  It  is  hardly  too 
much  to  term  it  one  of  the  most  fruitful  in  the 
history  of  the  church  of  America.  Beginning 
with  a  membership  at  the  time  of  Dr.  McLean's 
arrival  of  241,  it  attained  a  membership  of  1 183 
in  the  year  the  pastorate  was  laid  down.  Dur- 
ing his  pastorate  Dr.  McLean  received  into  the 
church  2473  members,  1234  by  confession;  an 
average  of  over  one  hundred  a  year.  The  benev- 
olence of  the  church  mounted  from  $2,612  in 
1871  to  $19,788  in  1889.  Figures  tell  but  a 
small  fraction  of  the  story.  The  far-reaching, 
down-rooting  wholesomeness,  pervasiveness  and 
productiveness  of  this  pastorate  was  its  strength 
and  its  glory — the  way  it  took  hold  of  the 
church,  the  congregation  and  the  community 
and  moulded,  sweetened  and  constructed  its  life. 

It  was  an  eminently  statesmanlike  as  well  as 
Christlike  pastorate.  Study,  for  example,  the 
way  in  which  the  pastor  extended  his  strong  and 
extraordinarily  elongated  spiritual  arms  around 
the  different  individuals,  ages,  groups,  organiza- 
tions of  his  church,  guiding  and  supporting  them 
all.  The  influence  of  the  pastor  over  the  strong 
men  of  the  church  and  community — to  begin 
with  that — was  notable.     Men  of  power  in  the 


JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 


community,  administrators,  business  men,  edu- 
cators, lawyers,  physicians,  rallied  to  his  leader- 
ship. 

Young  persons,  especially  young  men,  felt  the 
attraction  of  his  manhood,  and  gladly  put  them- 
selves under  his  sympathetic,  Idealizing  touch. 
Few  pastors,  or  for  that  matter  teachers,  have 
gathered  about  themselves  so  closely,  or  influ- 
enced so  formatlvely,  a  group  of  talented  and 
able  young  men.  From  boyhood  to  young  man- 
hood and  well  on  toward  maturity  he  guided 
their  development,  helped  to  fashion  their  Ideals 
and  stimulated  their  highest  capacities.  The 
enduring  loyalty  which  these  young  men,  now 
occupying  positions  of  trust  and  influence,  felt 
for  Dr.  McLean,  and  the  acknowledgment  of 
their  Indebtedness  to  him,  constitute  one  of  the 
richest  rewards  which  a  man  could  have  for  gen- 
erous and  unselfish  service.  Among  them,  three 
are  eminent  In  university  work,  three  occupy  po- 
sitions of  large  influence  in  the  Orient,  several 
are  political  leaders  whose  probity  is  as  fine  as 
their  influence,  one  became  Governor  of  the  State 
of  California,  many  are  prominent  In  business 
circles,  and  several  are  In  the  ministry.  A  more 
signal  Instance  of  multiplied  manhood  could  not 
readily  be  found.  A  number  of  young  men,  un- 
der Dr.  McLean's  supervision,  organized  a  so- 
ciety called  "The  Yokefellows,"  meeting  fort- 
nightly, which  took  upon  Itself  the  tasks  of  con- 
ducting a  mission  Sunday  School,  assuming 
charge  of  the  evening  service  of  the  church,  vis- 
iting the  hotels  with  invitations  to  the  church 
services,  and  similar  enterprises. 


A  PASTORATE  OF  POWER  39 

It  Is  one  of  the  incomparable  prerogatives  of 
a  true  pastor  that,  like  his  Master,  he  can  not 
only  summon  the  strong  to  the  battle  of  life  but 
heal  the  hurts  and  ills  of  the  wounded.  Dr.  Mc- 
Lean bore  the  sorrows  and  struggles  of  his  peo- 
ple. He  prayed  for  them  and  with  them,  in  the 
pulpit,  In  the  home,  in  his  own  room.  What  this 
ministry  of  prayer  meant,  let  such  a  letter  as 
this  from  a  woman  who  gave  to  the  world  one 
of  the  greatest  minds  of  American  philosophy 
Indicate : 

It  is  now  more  than  eight  years,  since  In 
the  providence  of  God,  I  was  led  to  attend, 
at  first  occasionally  afterward  more  regu- 
larly, upon  your  ministry.  From  the  first  I 
felt  myself  greatly  instructed  and  strength- 
ened by  your  teaching  and  your  prayers. 
As  time  went  on,  you  were  made  by  our 
gracious  Lord,  the  means  of  unspeakable 
consolation  and  help  to  me.  Many  a  time 
when  I  entered  the  sanctuary  with  broken 
heart  and  surrounded  by  clouds  so  dense 
that  I  could  see  only  one  ray  of  light  and 
that  when  I  looked  up  and  said,  "Out  of  the 
depths  have  I  cried  unto  Thee,  O  Lord,'* 
many  such  times  have  your  petitions  borne 
me  up  Into  the  light  and  comfort  of  our 
Heavenly  Father's  love.  Thoughts  and 
desires  which  I  could  not  express,  it  was 
given  you,  by  the  Holy  Spirit  to  utter,  and 
as  my  spirit  ascended  with  yours  in  these  pe- 
titions, answers  of  help  and  light  came 
down. 


40  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

And  then  his  service  to  the  children!  If  it 
were  not  that  the  statements  already  made  belie 
the  assertion,  it  would  hardly  be  too  much  to  say 
that  the  children  were  the  objects  of  Dr.  Mc- 
Lean's sole  and  undivided  care  and  interest.  In 
reviewing  his  pastorate  in  1900,  he  wrote :  "The 
second  pastor  found  this  field  (the  children),  to 
be  the  most  inviting  portion  of  his  charge." 
The  Sunday  School  was  his  pride  and  joy,  and 
he  kept  in  very  close  touch  with  it,  always  keenly 
alert  to  its  enlargement  and  improvement.  He 
had  an  aesthetic  as  well  as  gently  human  and 
pastoral  fondness  for  the  little  tots,  whom  he 
called  his  "pansy  bed."  The  beautiful  custom, 
introduced  by  him  in  his  church,  of  having  the 
little  troop  from  the  Kindergarten  file  in  at  the 
close  of  the  morning  service  to  share  the  bene- 
diction, has  been  adopted  in  a  number  of  other 
churches. 

"When  I  have  heard  Dr.  McLean  read  a 
chapter  of  the  Bible  and  pray,"  said  his  friend, 
Mr.  Samuel  T.  Alexander,  "I  had  a  genuine  ex- 
perience of  worship."^ 

The  shepherding  of  a  large  parish  in  such  a 
way  as  to  keep  in  touch  with  all,  interested  in 
each — not  superficially  but  personally — impar- 
tial, alert,  sympathetic,  capable  of  reading  char- 
acter, interpreting  needs,  drawing  out  confi- 
dences, is  a  splendid  and  difficult  task  and  calls 
for  gifts  and  acquirements  of  the  highest  order. 
"To  be  all  things  to  all  men"  one  must  have  a 
great  deal  of  wholeness  himself  and  must  exer- 
cise a  very  generous  use  of  all  the  capacities 
within  him. 

^  Rev.  E.  S.  Williams  in  The  Pacific. 


A  PASTOIL\TE  OF  POWER  41 

Dr.  McLean  had  an  excellent  memory  for  In- 
dividuals. This  was  not  merely  a  gift;  it  was 
due  in  large  degree  to  the  habit  of  concentrating 
his  mind  upon  his  people  that  he  could  recall 
the  name  of  the  latest  baby  and  the  face  of  the 
most  recent  newcomer  in  the  congregation.  But 
he  did  not  rely  wholly  upon  his  ability  to  reach 
each  of  his  parishioners  separately.  He  made 
judicious  use  also  of  methods  of  influencing  in- 
dividuals in  groups  and  through  self-multiplica- 
tion. It  was  his  custom,  for  example,  to  address 
a  friendly  New  Year  pastoral  letter  to  those 
w^ho  had  united  with  the  church  during  the  year. 
From  these  letters  he  succeeded  in  abstracting  the 
formal,  wholesale  tone  and  injecting  an  unusual 
degree  of  the  genuinely  personal  interest  and  at- 
mosphere. 

One  of  these  printed  letters  is  here  reproduced 
in  part: 

Study  First  Congregational  Church, 

Oakland,  Dec.  28,  1881. 
To   those  who   have  become  members  of 

our  Church  by  Confession,  in  1880 

and  188 1 : 
Dear  Christian  Friends: 

There  are  nearly  two  hundred  of  you 
who  are  thus  addressed.  In  your  spiritual 
welfare  and  progress  I  am  most  deeply  in- 
terested. So  that  I  can  almost  literally 
write  you,  as  Paul  wrote  to  the  Christians 
in  Rome,  "God  Is  my  witness  that  without 
ceasing  I  make  mention  of  you  always  In 
my  prayers."     I  have  tried  to  shape  our 


42  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

public  services  as  much  to  your  instruction 
and  profit  as  I  could.  I  should  have  been 
glad  to  have  maintained  a  much  more  full 
and  intimate  acquaintance  with  your  ex- 
perience and  progress  could  I  have  done  so. 
This,  in  the  care  of  so  large  a  church  being 
impossible,  I  feel  impelled  to  adopt  this  less 
satisfactory  method  of  acquainting  myself 
somewhat  more  fully  with  your  religious 
welfare.  As  most  of  you  are  young  in  years 
as  well  as  in  the  religious  life,  I  am  for  that 
reason  the  more  solicitous  to  know  how  you 
are  getting  on.  I  hope  well.  I  shall  not 
be  surprised,  however,  to  find  that  some  of 
you  have  met  with  obstacles,  hindrances, 
temptations  and  doubts.  In  these,  I  ask 
to  be  permitted  to  help  you  if  I  can.  But 
to  be  able  to  help  you  I  need  to  know  as 
fully  as  possible  of  your  experience  and  con- 
dition. 

To  this  end  I  send  to  each  of  you  a  copy 
of  this  circular  letter  and  most  earnestly  re- 
quest of  you  to  send  me  each  a  reply.  Please 
tell  me  freely  and  frankly  of  your  religious 
life.  Your  letters  will  greatly  aid  me  in  di- 
recting my  ministrations  in  the  months  to 
come.  If  you  have  had  a  uniform  and 
growing  love  for  the  Savior,  and  joy  in  his 
service,  please  let  me  know  it,  that  I  may 
rejoice  with  you.  If  you  have  found  dif- 
ficulties, discouragements,  hindrances  and 
trials,  will  you  not  as  frankly  speak  of 
these.  It  may  be  that  I  can  help  you  over- 
come them. 


A  PASTORATE  OF  POWER  43 

In  a  word,  please  confide  In  me  fully  and 
frankly  as  your  friend  and  pastor,  believing 
that  I  am  sincerely  interested  in  you  and  de- 
sirous to  help  you  all  I  can,  and  that  any 
confidence  you  repose  in  me  I  shall  most 
sacredly  respect. 

The  year  is  about  to  end  and  a  new  one 
to  begin.  Will  it  not  be  wise  and  well  to 
begin  the  new  year  with  some  special  desire 
and  special  endeavor  to  have  a  new  and 
fuller  consecration  to  the  Lord  Jesus? 

With  most  earnest  wishes  and  sincere 
prayers  for  you  all,  believe  me, 

Your  pastor  and  friend, 

J.  K.  McLean. 

Here  is  a  clue  to  one  of  the  secrets  of  Dr. 
McLean's  influence — a  religious  experience  of 
his  own  which  opened  to  him  the  wealth  of  the 
Divine  life  and  love,  and  a  sympathy  which  en- 
abled him  to  mediate  that  love  to  others.  What 
wonder  that  when  his  study  door  at  the  church 
was  opened  wide,  with  an  invitation,  to  any 
or  all  who  would,  to  come,  at  certain  hours,  for 
advice  and  counsel,  a  stream  of  all  sorts  and 
conditions  of  men  poured  through,  to  emerge 
strengthened,  cheered,  and  with  clarified  vision. 
The  good  accomplished  by  these  hours  of  con- 
sultation can  never  be  estimated.  It  was  a  gen- 
uine spiritual  clinic. 

Among  Dr.  McLean's  parish  records  are  two 
large,  well  bound  books,  which  were  once 
blank  books  but  long  since  ceased  to  be  such, 


44  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

the  one  marked  "Marriages"  and  the  other 
*'Deaths."  The  record  is  complete  from  1873. 
The  care  with  which  the  entries  are  made  fur- 
nishes a  rnodel  for  pastors — and  others.  The 
frequency  of  the  funerals  attended  in  the  latter 
years  of  his  ministry  is  almost  appalling,  reach- 
ing sometimes  seven,  eight  or  nine  a  month — 
an  average  of  one  every  three  or  four  days. 
When  one  recalls  all  that  such  a  record  means 
of  the  strain  of  self-sacrificing  sympathy,  it  tells 
its  own  story. 

On  the  other  hand  it  is  pleasant  to  note  that 
the  number  of  weddings  equals,  if  it  does  not 
exceed,  that  of  the  funerals — a  total  in  the  fifty 
years  of  his  ministry  of  nearly  thirteen  hundred 
— the  number  married  thus  doubling  the  number 
buried.  Thirteen  hundred  homes  set  going  un- 
der the  smile  and  with  the  kindly  interest  of  this 
good  friend!  Who  will  compute  what  that 
means? 

The  following  description  of  the  church  and 
its  pastor,  which  appeared  in  a  religious  jour- 
nal, gives  a  vivid  picture  of  both : 

The  First  Congregational  Church  of 
Oakland  has  been  for  years  the  head  and 
front  of  Congregational  churches  out  here, 
a  tower  of  strength  to  Congregationalism 
and  to  all  its  weak  and  struggling  sisters. 
It  is  a  large,  generous,  wealthy,  working 
church,  which  has  done  a  grand  pioneer 
service  in  Oakland  and  on  this  coast  as  the 
nursing  mother  of  all  good  enterprises. 
...  In  some  respects  Dr.  McLean  stands 


JOHN    KNOX   McLFAN 

AT  TWENTV-SIX 


A  PASTORATE  OF  POWER  45 

unrivalled  out  here.  He  Is  an  expert  or- 
ganizer, and  especially  fertile  In  methods 
of  Interesting  and  enlisting  the  young.  In 
all  social  amenities  he  Is  thoroughly  at 
home.  As  a  moderator  or  chairman  of  a 
public  assembly,  few  men  anywhere  evince 
so  much  ability,  are  of  such  ready  speech, 
such  genial  temper,  such  quickness  of 
thought,  such  playful  humor,  carrying  an 
auditory  as  one  man,  and  handling  the 
machinery  of  a  public  meeting  with  the 
ease  of  a  "master  of  assemblies."  All  this, 
added  to  a  clear  enunciation,  a  far-reaching 
melodious  voice,  and  a  manner  which  en- 
lists the  hearer, — all  this  tells  In  a  new 
community,  where  people  of  the  most 
diverse  antecedents  often  meet  together, 
not  knowing  whether  they  are  of  one  mind 
or  many,  or  what  any  one  thinks  on  a  given 
subject. 

In  1876  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Divinity  was 
conferred  upon  Mr.  McLean  by  Knox  College. 
At  the  close  of  the  twentieth  year  of  this  far- 
reaching  pastorate,  the  church  sent  out  to  the 
members  the  following  card  of  invitation : 

YOU  ARE  MOST  CORDIALLY  INVITED 

TO  BE  PRESENT  AT  THE 

EVENING  PRAYER  MEETING 

FIRST  CONGREGATIONAL   CHURCH 

OF  OAKLAND 

V^EDNESDAY   EVENING 

April  27,  1892 


46  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

at  which  time  the  exercises  will  be  in  recog- 
nition by  the  church  of  the  twentieth  anni- 
versary of  the  commencement  of  Dr.  Mc- 
Lean's pastorate.  One  feature  of  the  occa- 
sion will  be  the  delivery  to  the  pastor  of  a 
"Twenty-Year  Mail,"  for  his  private  read- 
ing, to  which  all  who  are  so  disposed  are 
invited  to  contribute.  This  feature  is  ex- 
pected to  be  a  "surprise"  and  you  will  please 
consider  it  a  matter  of  confidence. 

By  Direction  of  the  Church  Committee. 
The  letters  making  up  this  mail  bag  are 
enough  to  overwhelm  the  objections  of  those  to 
whom  the  Christian  pastorate  is  a  useless  and 
worn-out  sentimentalism,  enough  to  turn  the 
head  of  an  unstable  man,  enough  to  make  a 
seraph  sing.  Space  permits  only  a  few  quota- 
tions. This  was  from  a  teacher,  of  the  best  New 
England  training,  long  prominent  as  principal 
of  the  Oakland  High  School : 

I  wish  to  express  in  the  most  emphatic 
manner  my  deep  obligation  to  you  for  what 
you  have  done  for  me  spiritually.  I  fully 
realize  upon  what  unknown  seas  I  might 
have  drifted  had  there  not  been  a  guiding 
hand  near. 

A  lawyer,  occupying  a  place  of  trust  and  es- 
teem, writes  of  his  thankfulness  to  God, 

for  making  it  possible  for  you  to  preach 
such  a  sermon  of  retrospective  gladness  as 
that  of  this  morning  and  for  the  unanimous 
response  of  gladness  and  hearty  approval 
from  all  our  hearts. 


A  PASTORATE  OF  POWER  47 

A    woman    of    refinement    writes    feelingly 
of — 

thankfulness   for  the   help   of  which  you 
are  doubtless  unconscious.    I  cannot  explain 
it  to  you  except  that  It  Is  a  wish  to  be  my 
best  when  near  you. 
Another  said: 

I  never  had  so  many  coats  put  on  me 
that  fitted, — some  of  them  right  snugly, 
but  the  better  appreciated  on  that  account 
and  adds:  The  prayer-meetings  have  been 
a  means  of  helpfulness.  I  have  carried 
from  each  some  'stick'  which  has  not  only 
added  to  the  warmth  of  my  own  heart,  but 
helped  to  make  the  home  fire  blaze  more 
brightly. 

A    German,    struggling    with    the    language, 
writes : 

No  wone  In  yur  church  can  be  more 
thank  Full  than  my  Wife  and  my  Selfe.  1 
have  ofent  thought  how  God  has  Led  me  on 
For  these  1 1  years  &  had  It  not  Ben  for  you 
I  properbly  Wod  not  Be  A  Christian  ^o 
Day. 
A  little  girl  declared: 

I  just  feel  as  If  I  would  like  to  see  you 
every  day  and  have  a  nice  talk  with  you. 

A  mother  writes : 

If  It  Is  any  joy  and  comfort  to  have 

lifted  the  clouds  from  darkened  lives  'nto 

the  clear  light  of  spiritual  trust  and  hope, 

then  may  that  joy  and  comfort  be  yours. 

(Signed)    One  who  has  been  so  helped. 


48  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

A  young  man  spoke  of  the  high  alms  of  Chris- 
tian manhood  which  had  been  inspiration  to  him. 
And  so  the  story  goes.  If  human  aspirations 
and  efforts  after  the  higher  life  mean  anything, 
such  testimonials  cannot  be  less  than  an  evidence, 
not  only  of  the  character  and  wisdom  of  this 
great-hearted  pastor,  but  still  more  of  the  activ- 
ity of  "a  Power  not  ourselves  that  makes  for 
righteousness"  and  of  the  responsiveness  of  hu- 
man hearts  and  lives. 

That  other  churches  were  aware  that  there 
was  power  in  this  Oakland  pastorate  is  evidenced 
by  the  calls  which  came  to  Dr.  McLean  from 
the  First  Church  of  Honolulu  in  June,  1881, 
and  from  the  First  Church  of  Los  Angeles  in 
August,  1887. 

One  of  the  most  thoroughly  Christian  features 
of  this  great  and  vital  church  which  grew  up 
about  Dr.  McLean  was  its  democratic  character. 
It  was  a  church  of  the  people.  The  rich  and 
poor  met  together;  the  educated  and  the  unedu- 
cated. Dr.  McLean  loved  the  working  man  and 
won  him,  and  thus  prepared  the  way  for  the 
strikingly  outspoken  and  successful  ministry  to 
Labor  of  his  brilliant  successor,  Charles  R. 
Brown. 

When  Dr.  McLean  closed  his  pastorate  of 
twenty-three  years,  to  accept  the  presidency  of 
Pacific  Theological  Seminary,  September,  1895, 
— preaching  in  the  morning  on  "Life,"  and  in 
the  evening  on  ^'J^Y'" — ^  wave  of  gratitude  and 
affection  swept  not  only  over  the  church  but 
the  whole  city.     It  found  worthy  expression  In 


A  PASTORATE  OF  POWER  49 

the  following  editorial  in  the  Oakland  Enquirer, 
with  which  this  chapter  may  fittingly  close: 
The  Enquirer  comes  not  to  bury  Caesar 
but  to  praise  him — a  little.  In  the  nearly 
quarter  of  a  century  during  which  he  has 
been  the  pastor  of  the  First  Congregational 
Church,  Dr.  McLean  has  exerted  a  greater 
aggregate  influence  for  the  betterment  of 
this  community  than  any  other  man  it  has 
contained.  No  one  else  has  labored  so  long, 
so  constantly,  so  judiciously  and  so  power- 
fully for  the  uplifting  of  the  things  which 
are  good  and  for  the  condemnation  of  the 
wrong.  Many  strong  men — some  politi- 
cians, who  thought  they  held  the  key  to  the 
welfare  of  the  community,  others,  able 
lawyers,  who  have  made  and  unmade  great 
causes,  some  brilliant  scholars,  who  ad- 
dressed themselves  to  the  most  intellectual 
classes  in  our  midst,  along  with  numerous 
others,  each  wielding  power  in  their  own 
way — have  come  and  gone,  but  the  quiet, 
persistent  influence  of  one  church,  in  the 
end,  outweighs  them  all.  Many  other 
things  have  made  more  noise,  each  in  its 
day,  but  that  day  was  usually  short  and 
when  it  ended  Dr.  McLean  and  his  church 
were  still  there,  standing  as  ever  for  those 
things  which  are  of  good  report. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  PARSON  AT  PLAY. 

The  best  workers  are  frequently  the  best 
players.  People  have  often  wondered  that  a 
man  who  carried  so  many  responsibilities  and 
bore  so  many  burdens  and  shared  so  many 
heartaches  as  Dr.  McLean,  could  keep  so  young 
and  buoyant,  like  a  day  in  spring.  For  he  was 
one  of  those  men  who  grow  younger  as  they 
grow  older,  and  at  the  dread  age  when  so  many 
begin  to  wrap  the  mantle  of  their  couch  about 
them,  he  was  still — as  Dr.  Henry  Van  Dyke 
(one  of  his  comrades  in  travel)  described  him, 
in  Out  of  Doors  in  the  Holy  Land, — "a  tall, 
slender  youth  of  seventy  years." 

The  springs  that  lay  at  the  source  of  the  flow- 
ing freshness  of  Dr.  McLean's  life — faith  In 
God,  love  to  men — could  not  have  flown  so 
freely  had  it  not  been  for  a  very  wise  though 
simple  means  of  keeping  them  open, — the  habit 
of  recreation.  He  was  an  adept  at  knowing 
how  to  "throw  dull  care  away,"  and  take  it  up 
again,  no  longer  dull.  Good  fellow^ship,  clean 
mirth  and  plenty  of  out-of-doors  were  all  very 
dear  to  him. 

His  love  of  nature,  deeply  implanted  in  boy- 
hood, never  left  him,  "She  (nature),  has  us," 
as  he  once  said,  "in  our  opening  hours,  wholly, 
at  first,  partially  ever  after.     There  Is  nothing 


THE    PARSON    AT    PLAY  SI 

to  which  the  youngling  clings  as  to  a  flower  or 
some  bright  shell;  there  are  tremulous  memories 
in  them  of  his  last  thousand  years." 

One  more  sensitive  to  nature  than  he,  I  think 
I  have  never  seen.  Whoever  walked  with  him 
In  his  later  years,  at  least,  had  to  be  content  to 
stop  every  few  moments, — at  the  cost  of  a  com- 
plete break  In  the  conversation, — to  observe  a 
peculiar  light  in  the  sky,  or  a  flower  by  the  road- 
side, or  a  shapely  tree,  or  some  other  beautiful 
wayside  sight.  His  was  not  the  interest  of  the 
naturalist,  but  of  the  nature-lover,  whose  eye  is 
In  love  with  life  and  beauty. 

Dr.  McLean  had  not  been  long  in  California 
before  he  discovered  and  appropriated,  as  his 
friend.  Joseph  Le  Conte  before  him  had  done, 
that  spacious  and  beautiful  playground,  the 
Sierra.  He  was  one  of  the  charter  members  of 
the  Sierra  Club,  an  early  contributor  to  the 
Sierra  Club  Bulletin  and  several  times  joined  the 
annual  outings  of  the  club.^  His  favorite  camp- 
ground was  in  the  shadow  of  the  splendid  cone 
of  Mount  Shasta,  upon  the  banks  of  the  Mc- 
Cloud  River.  Here  he  drank  in  strength  and 
fresh  air  and  inspiration  in  such  draughts  as  re- 
newed his  youth  like  the  eagle's. 

Upon  all  who  could  enjoy  this  life  in  the 
woods  he  eloquently  urged  its  benefits;  to  such 
as  could  not,  he  made  it  so  vivid  and  real  as  al- 
most to  produce  the  Illusion  that  they  had  seen 
it  all  with  him.  In  the  paper.  Multitude  and 
Solitude,  to  which  reference  has  already  been 

*  A  vivid  description  by  him  of  autumn  coloring  in  the  Sierra  en- 
titled "Upper  Sacramento  in  October,"  appeared  in  the  second 
number  of  the  Bulletin. 


52  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

made,  is  this  picture  of  such  a  camp  in  the  for- 
est as  suited  his  taste: 

Let  it  be  the  deep  and  solemn  woods,  a 
place  of  great  trees,  where  the  fir  grows, 
and  the  sugar  pine,  queen  of  the  forest,  the 
yellow  pine,  prince  consort  to  the  queen, 
and  noble  cedars.  Let  it  be  among  the 
mountains.  If  it  be  where  some  great  ice 
dome  dominates  the  lesser  peaks,  so  much 
the  better.  Not  to  stay  in  sight  of  the 
great  monarch  always,  but  where  on  occas- 
ion can  be  caught,  all  on  the  sudden,  the 
face  of  him;  and  where  he  is  seen  in  par- 
tial disclosure  rather  than  in  full.  Let 
there  be  a  river;  not  too  large,  but  of  full 
banks,  clear,  cold  and  impetuous;  a  river 
that  could  drown  you,  and  cheerfully 
would,  if  it  got  the  chance;  there  must  be 
some  spice  of  danger,  else  no  true  sense  of 
solitude.  Let  this  river  be  fringed  with 
azaleas;  outside  of  these,  the  great-leaved 
shield-saxifrage  and  ferns  in  shady  spots. 
Before  your  abiding  place  let  sun  and 
shadow  mingle  in  equal  parts.  Be  near  a 
spring  of  water.  Let  the  camp  be  some- 
what environed  with  shrubberies;  vine- 
maple,  dogwood,  hazel  bush, — their 
brighter  green  in  most  grateful  contrast 
with  the  deeper  tones. 

Do  not  go  utterly  alone ;  one  or  two  with 
you  who  can  without  embarrassment  some- 
times be  silent;  long  silent  if  occasion  may 
require,  but  who  can  talk,  too,  when  the 


THE  PARSON  AT  PLAY  53 


mood  is  on.  A  good  Indian  serves  well  on 
some  accounts.  He  understands  the  art  of 
silence  and  can  practice  it  without  burden 
to  his  feelings.  He  can  give  you  points  in 
wood  lore,  and  introduce  you  to  some  fine 
features  of  the  solitude  other  guides  might 
miss;  besides,  he  is  himself  a  son  of  the 
solitude  and  fits  in  well  with  the  surround- 
ings. If  not  an  Indian,  then  a  poet,  if  you 
know  a  sane  one.  There  was  such  an  one 
once,  who  by  the  sunshine  of  his  presence 
Illuminated  the  atmosphere  of  this  Club; 
and  whose  presence  made  the  sunshine 
brighter  everywhere.  What  a  comrade  he 
was !  How  with  him  one  could  soend 
whole  days  in  silence  unreserved,  without 
embarrassment;  and  again  beside  the  camp 
fire  talk  through  long  evenings  or  for  half 
the  night  sometimes  over  the  smouldering 
ashes.  How  he  loved  the  forest  solitude! 
What  varied  culture  he  had  garnered  from 
it.  How  he  could  open  its  inner  meanings 
to  neophytes  like  some  of  us  who  went  with 
him,  page  by  page,  chapter  by  chapter, 
scarcely  with  words  at  all,  but  by  his  own 
deep  gladness  and  visible  comprehension  of 
it.  But  he  is  gone,  and  all  the  forests  are 
poorer  for  it.  Yet  one  should  not  say  that 
either.  It  is  not  wholly  true.  Mountain 
and  wood  mourn  him,  yet  his  invisible 
presence  abides  in  them  everywhere.  It 
can  be  felt  in  places  where  in  bodily  pres- 
ence he  never  went.     Whoever  was  privl- 


54  JOHN   KNOX   MCLEAN 

leged  to  wilderness-comradeship  with  Pro- 
fessor Sill  will  keep  that  comradeship  un- 
broken and  living  so  long  as  there  are  for- 
ests to  visit,  and  he  is  permitted  to  visit 
them. 

Your  material  surroundings  bent  to  your 
mind,  settle  down  for  six  weeks'  stay  at 
least;  not  a  day  less  will  suffice  for  much. 
Stay  as  much  longer  as  you  can.  Abide  in 
this  retreat  meekly.  Do  not  set  up  to  be 
the  superior  intelligence  there,  which  you 
are  not;  be  content  to  have  footing  as  the 
inferior,  which  you  will  very  soon  find  you 
are.  Go  not  to  lord  it  over  your  little 
brethren  of  the  wood.  Nature's  other  chil- 
dren, but  to  be  their  guest;  not  even  to 
learn  about  them,  but  to  learn  from  them. 
Draw  closely  to  these  gentle  neighbors, 
obeying,  with  reference  to  them,  St.  Paul's 
injunction  to  esteem  others  better  than 
yourself.  For  they  are  better.  Every  one 
of  them,  and  their  name  is  legion,  is,  up  to 
the  measure  of  his  calling  and  in  his  way, 
fulfilling  God's  will  more  perfectly  than 
you. 

And  if  you  are  to  gain  anything  in  this 
place  or  to  gain  anything  in  Nature's  pre- 
cincts anywhere,  you  must  provide  your- 
self with  open  mind,  "alert  to  observe,  but 
above  all  things  else  ready  to  receive  what- 
ever of  truth,  power  or  spirit.  Nature  has 
to  impart."  Nature's  meanings  are  not  to 
be  strained  after,  only  yielded  to,  not 
grasped,  only  to  be  received  by  instillation. 


THE   PARSON    AT   PLAY  55 

The  allusion  to  Edward  Rowland  Sill,  for 
whom  he  cherished  so  warm  a  friendship, 
should  be  supplemented  by  the  description 
which  he  gave  of  the  California  poet  before  the 
Berkeley  Club,  as  the  ideal  camper,  adducing 
this  unique  and  conclusive  evidence,  that  he  al- 
ways took  his  half  of  the  loaf,  no  more  and  no 
less.  When  these  two  were  together  in  the 
Sierra,  they  called  each  other  "Dan'l  Boone" 
and  "  'Ik'  Walton,"  the  poet  representing  the 
latter.  This  tribute  of  Dr.  McLean  to  the 
camping  qualities  of  Mr.  Sill  may  well  be  ac- 
companied by  one  which  was  once  paid  to  him- 
self by  Governor  Pardee,  who  said,  "I  have 
camped  with  him  and  I  have  fished  with  him. 
He  was  always  calm,  cool  and  serene.  When 
the  coffee  was  short  and  the  bacon  bad,  it  was 
always  accepted  by  him  with  the  best  of  spirits." 
At  the  foot  of  Mount  Shasta,  as  has  been 
said,  was  Dr.  McLean's  favorite  camping 
place.  But  let  it  not  be  inferred  that  he  was 
content  to  remain  at  the  foot  of  Shasta.  That 
was  not  his  way.  He  must  make  the  ascent. 
The  account  of  it,  published  in  The  Advance, 
closes  thus: 

A  tin  cup,  a  lump  of  condensed  beef- 
juice,  some  melted  snow  set  simmering  over 
one  of  the  sulphur  steam  escapes,  and  we 
are  ready.  It  is  dizzy  work.  At  first,  it  is 
like  climbing  up  the  gutter  of  a  high-roofed 
house.  Then  the  gutter  abruptly  ends,  and 
there  Is  nothing  for  it  but  to  take  the  ridge 
pole.     On  one  side  the  climber  can  feel  tol- 


56  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

erably  comfortable.  It  is  only  the  height 
of  a  church  steeple,  off  there.  But  as  he 
conservatively  cranes  his  neck  in  the  oppo- 
site direction,  he  draws  back  aghast.  There 
is  a  sheer,  unbroken  leap  of  many  hun- 
dreds of  feet.  Thousands  on  thousands,  it 
appears  to  him.  He  instinctively  flattens 
himself  to  the  cliff  like  a  lizard,  and  wishes 
he  could  sink  his  finger-nails  two  inches 
deep  into  this  crumbling  rock!  His  nerv- 
ous poise  is  not  helped  on  at  all  by  the  com- 
ing and  going  overhead  of  sundry  vicious, 
little  puffs  of  wind,  which  whirl  up  out  of 
the  under-eddies  in  the  rocks.  Baby  torna- 
does these  seem  to  be,  sent  up  here  to  nurse 
and  be  trained,  against  such  time  as  they 
shall  be  grown  up  and  called  for  over  in 
the  great  basin  of  the  Mississippi.  As  play- 
ful as  kittens  are  they,  and  perhaps  as 
harmless.  But  as  they  frolic  with  one's 
hat,  and  set  such  loose  ends  of  raiment  as 
he  has  about  him  whirling  and  flapping 
playfully,  it  really  appears  a  rather  serious 
game  to  him.  He  would  much  rather  be 
excused  just  then.  It  requires  no  great 
stretch  of  fancy  to  see  one  of  these  moun- 
tain zephyrs  gently  lifting  one  off  the  rocks, 
and  sending  him  headlong  down  that  aw- 
ful abyss.  A  few  yards  of  this  experience, 
and  the  terminal  point  is  at  last  attained. 
The  nerve-shaken  climber  sinks  down  with 
a  feeling  half-exultant  over  his  success,  and 
half-repentant,    under    conviction    of    his 


THE   PARSON    AT   PLAY  57 


folly  In  having  ever  thrust  himself  Into  this 
terrific  spot ! 

Deeply  attached  to  the  Sierra  as  was  this 
lover  of  the  mountains,  he  was  not  In  the  least 
provincial  In  his  devotion.  He  loved  the  Rocky 
Mountains  only  less  than  the  Sierra.  The  Alps, 
too,  were  full  of  fascination  to  him.  In  1886 
he  climbed  Mont  Blanc.  Among  the  Interest- 
ing descriptions  of  his  travels  abroad  which  he 
wrote  for  the  Oakland  Tribune,  occurs  this  vi- 
vacious and  picturesque  account  of  the  Gemmi 
Pass: 

The  Gemmi  Pass  is  one  of  the  most  fre- 
quented and,  by  common  consent,  one  of 
the  grandest  of  all  Alpine  passes.  I  was 
obliged  to  take  it  alone.  The  other  six 
were  set  on  Berne  and  Its  bears,  Freiburg 
and  Its  organ.  The  two  routes  were,  in 
our  plans  of  travel.  Incompatible.  Be- 
sides, the  morning  was  drearily  wet  and  It 
was  difficult  to  justify  the  wisdom  of  any- 
body attempting  such  an  ascent  on  such  a 
day.  The  matter  must  be  decided  how- 
ever during  the  half  hour  from  Interlaken 
to  a  landing  called  Splez,  on  the  Lake  of 
Thun.  Comb  and  tooth  brush  had  been 
clandestinely  conveyed  into  my  pocket,  in 
case  the  weather  should  clear,  umbrella  and 
water-proof  were  kept  free,  and  I  watched 
the  clouds.  The  steamer  speeds  its  way, 
and  still  the  sky  lowers  and  the  rain  comes 
down.  I  am  made  the  subject  of  endless 
derision  as  a  specimen  of  the  drowned-out 


58  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

Alpine  climber.  I  say  to  myself,  "If  the 
sun  shall  show  his  face  for  so  much  as  the 
single  thousandth  of  a  second  before  this 
boat  touches  the  wharf  at  Splez  I  will  take 
that  for  my  token  and  try  the  pass." 
Within  thirty  boat's  lengths  of  the  pier  the 
sun  for  a  single  Instant  did  peep  out.  It 
seemed  to  me  he  looked  square  at  me  and 
winked.  It  was  enough.  I  grasped  my 
water-proof,  said  some  hasty  good-byes, 
and  before  the  astonished  bear-lovers  could 
get  their  breath  they  were  being  paddled 
off  toward  the  Bernese  bear-pits,  and  I,  In  a 
one-horse  vehicle,  was  driving  toward  the 
wonderful  pass  of  Gemml. 
After  describing  his  approach  to  the  pass,  he 
continues : 

In  half  an  hour  we  were  In  thick  clouds. 
The  fir  trees  were  dripping,  as  In  a  heavy 
rain  storm.  Beard,  horse's  mane,  overcoat, 
were  rimy  with  moisture.  The  two  dozen 
people  met  making  their  descent  looked 
like  drenched  chickens.  The  voice  of  water- 
falls presently  was  heard.  And  this  was 
aggravating.  For  two  or  three  cascades 
leap,  the  guide  books  say,  off  this  moun- 
tain-side Into  a  beautiful  valley  and  lake 
twelve  hundred  feet  below.  A  fine  pano- 
rama Is  also  visible  here  under  right  condi- 
tions. "To  the  northeast  the  jagged  Blr- 
renhorn;  to  the  east  the  glistening  snow 
mantle  of  the  Bliimllsalp,  the  beautiful 
Doldenhorn  and  the  barren  FIsIstoeke;  to 


THE   PARSON   AT    PLAY  59 

the  southwest,  between  the  Meschlnthal 
and  the  Gasternthal,  stands  the  lofty  Gelll- 
horn."  It  was  the  reading  of  sentences 
like  that  which  had  led  me  to  decide 
against  the  bears  and  the  organ  pipes  and 
to  choose  the  Gemmi.  And  here  I  was 
among  it  all,  and  couldn't  for  fog,  see  a 
foot  beyond  my  horse's  nose.  I  thought  of 
six  dry,  warm  people  who  had  had  their 
supper  and  were  standing  at  ease  about  a 
bear-pit  in  the  comfortably  level  streets  of 
Berne,  feeding  the  strong  smelling  crea- 
tures with  ginger-snaps.  It  seemed  almost 
as  though  firmness  and  perseverance  do  not 
always  get  their  due  reward.  But  regrets 
were  vain  and  I  put  them  by.  In  another 
half  hour  things  improved.  We  left  the 
fog  below  us.  The  fog,  and  the  trees,  and 
all  growing  things.  There  was  an  upper 
stratum  of  clouds  still  above  us,  but  high 
above  us,  and  the  level  beams  of  the  even- 
ing sun  were  putting  them  into  rapid  com- 
motion. Occasionally  at  first,  then  continu- 
ously, these  melting  clouds  would  open 
and  shut,  and  disclose  great  towering  peaks 
of  snow  and  ice.  The  effect  was  to  make 
these  appear  very  much  higher  even  than 
they  really  were.  It  was  an  amazing  spec- 
tacle. I  did  not  long  for  the  bears  now  a 
bit.  I  totally  forgot  I  had  had  no  supper; 
almost  that  I  was  wet  and  cold.  Those 
vast,  white  gleaming  pillars  and  pinnacles 
of  silver,  tinged  to  rose  color  under  the 


6o  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

setting  sun!  It  actually  seemed  as  though 
one  were  being  caught  up  into  a  seventh 
heaven  and  permitted  to  see  things  of 
which  it  were  not  lawful  to  tell.  It  was 
the  journey  through  doubt  and  darkness 
up  into  mystery.  But  mystery  outlining 
most  solid  and  glorious  certainty.  One's 
feet  stood  on  the  rock.  Enough  was  dis- 
closed to  enchain  fancy,  kindle  imagina- 
tion and  confirm  faith.  These  are  the  very 
battlements  of  heaven.  It  will  not  be 
strange  to  see  them  teeming  by  and  by  with 
chariots  and  horsemen. 

The  sun  went  down.  The  lifted  upper 
clouds  closed  in  again.  Darkness  began  to 
gather.  The  cold  grew  almost  bitter.  The 
bridle  path  was  bordered  with  desolation. 
No  living  thing  remained,  not  even  moss 
or  lichens.  A  shallow,  barren-shored  lake 
is  reached,  which  is  glacier-fed  and  is  said 
to  be  frozen  over  for  seven  months  in  the 
year. 

Adjectives  now  became  impotent  and 
useless.  I  will  let  them  go,  and  without 
color  merely  name  some  of  the  things 
which  are  to  be  seen.  The  inn  stands  at 
an  altitude  of  7,553  feet,  which  involves  a 
far  greater  degree  of  cold  and  desolation 
than  an  equal  height  among  our  Sierras. 
It  occupies  the  gap  between  two  mountains 
(the  ears  of  the  mule),  which  spring  ab- 
ruptly 2,000  feet  on  either  side  above  it. 
Around  one  of  these  horns  or  ears  winds  an 


THE  PARSON   AT   PLAY  6l 

enormous  glacier,  which  melts  within  half 
a  mile  of  where  we  are  to  sleep.  Beyond 
that  again  rise  a  long  line  of  snow  peaks 
from  which  the  glacier  gathers  its  material. 
All  this  is  very  impressive.  We  are  evi- 
dently near  the  heart  of  things.  But  in 
front  of  us  stands  the  marvel.  First,  a 
perpendicular  cliff  drops  3000  feet,  with 
wall  as  sheer  as  any  in  Yosemite.  Below 
lies  a  green  valley  dotted  with  houses  and 
spotted  by  a  village.  Then  is  disclosed 
the  great  Rhone  Valley.  And,  towering 
beyond  that,  forty  miles  away,  the  Alps 
Valais.  Over  all  these  things  there  rests, 
in  this  glorious  twilight,  no  particle  of 
cloud,  or  mist,  or  haze.  The  air  is  trans- 
parent as  ether.  The  Valaisian  Alps  are 
seen  upon  their  northern  side,  on  which,  of 
course,  the  snow  lies  deepest.  The  horizon, 
for  a  full  quarter  of  its  whole  circumfer- 
ence, is  occupied  by  them.  There  are  not 
less  than  ten  peaks  which  rise  above  14,- 
000  feet.  There  is  the  Monte  Rosa  group, 
the  huge  Weisshorn,  the  Brunneckhorn, 
the  sharp,  sky-cutting  pyramid  of  the 
tragic  Matterhorn,  and  another  great 
group  culminating  in  the  Dent  Blanche.  I 
may  live  a  thousand  years,  but  I  shall 
never  see  such  another  sight.  Long  after 
sunset  these  distant  peaks  glowed  as  though 
they  had  been  heated  to  a  red  white  heat. 
Doubtless  it  troubled  some  of  Dr.  McLean's 
loyal  friends  to  have  him  so  ardent  a  fisherman, 


62  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

— for  fisherman  he  was  up  to  the  very  last  of  his 
ability  to  land  a  trout,  at  the  age  of  seventy- 
seven.  And  a  successful  fisherman  at  that;  he 
himself  admitted  it  in  the  account  he  once  wrote 
of  "The  Parson's  Piscatorial  Success,"  in  which 
he  "modestly  but  firmly"  set  forth  how,  in  a 
fishing  contest  in  the  Rocky  Mountains,  "the 
parson  came  trailing  his  spoil  after  him,  victor. 
None  had  so  many  fish,  none  so  large  as  he. 
How  many  and  how  large,  I  forbear  to  state. 
I  do  not  wish  to  throw  any  shadow  of  discredit 
upon  this  veritable  history." 

Being  an  unsuccessful  devotee  of  the  same 
"gentle  art,"  the  writer  will  not  venture  to  con- 
demn the  fishing  parson.  The  Old  Adam,  or 
the  excusing  Peter,  or  the  everlasting  Boy,  or 
something,  rises  up  too  strongly  in  him  as  he 
reads  the  good  Doctor's  unregenerate  words: 
"Oh,  what  riffs  and  ripples!  What  deep-lying 
holes  among  the  rocks!  And  the  gleams  of 
gold  that  greeted  his  eyes  every  now  and  then 
out  of  those  depths.  Yes,  and  what  golden 
gleams  shot  out  of  them  right  into  the  parson's 
very  fingers!  Into  his  fingers  do  I  say?  Into 
his  very  soul   I   might  have   said,   where   they 

scintillate  still Not  once  but  many 

times  has  he  caught  that  string  of  trout.  It 
hangs  suspended  on  memory's  top-most  peg, — 
a  thing  of  beauty  and  a  joy  forever." 

A  characteristic  word  of  Dr.  McLean's,  an- 
ent  fishing,  has  been  preserved  by  Mr.  Charles 
J.  Woodbury  who  once  overheard  the  Doctor 
reply  to  a  tender-hearted  lady  parishioner  who 


THE   PARSON    AT    PLAY  63 

was  remonstrating  with  him  upon  the  cruelty 
of  fishing:  "Madam,  if  I  drop  my  line  into 
the  water,  and  any  living  creature  comes  along 
and  disputes  my  right  to  it,  I  shall  resist  his 
claim  to  the  very  best  of  my  ability."  A  suf- 
ficient answer,  from  the  point  of  view  at  least 
of  the  old  political  economy. 

One  of  the  best  results  of  these  vacation  days 
was  the  generosity  and  success  with  which  the 
beneficiary  shared  them.  The  sermon  follow- 
ing his  vacation,  as  he  returned  "staggering  un- 
der the  weight  of  impressions"  (as  he  once  put 
It)  could  be  counted  upon  to  consist  chiefly  of 
vivid  pictures  of  scenes  and  experiences  he  had 
enjoyed.  The  members  of  the  First  Church  of 
Oakland  came  to  regard  themselves  as  propri- 
etary owners  of  Mount  Shasta,  the  McCloud 
River,  and  all  the  forests,  flowers,  streams  and 
springs  pertaining  thereto,  through  "this 
Apostle  of  the  Sierras,  Envoy  Extraordinary 
and  Minister  Plenipotentiary  of  the  Royal 
Shasta,"  as  Mr.  C.  Z.  Merritt  once  dubbed 
him. 

They  took  all  their  pastor's  wider  journeys 
with  him,  too,  and  became  citizens  of  the  world 
through  his  eyes  and  mind  and  heart.  Thus 
Europe,  parts  of  the  Orient,  the  Holy  Land — 
whose  resemblance  to  California  he  was  very 
fond  of  tracing — became  vivid  realities  to  many 
to  whom  otherwise  they  would  have  been  but 
names.  Others  beside  his  own  people,  too, 
shared  these  travels,  through  public  prints  and 
addresses. 


JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 


The  quantum  of  theology  and  exhortation 
his  congregation  received  may  have  suffered 
limitation  thereby;  but  many  grew  to  be  lovers 
of  nature  and  of  humanity,  of  beauty  and  of 
truth,  as  they  could  not  otherwise  have  become. 
Nor  did  his  congregation  ever  complain  that 
they  were  not  thus  listening  to  true  sermons,  for 
upon  whatever  subject  Dr.  McLean  spoke  In 
his  pulpit,  he  preached,  and  the  people  went 
away,  made  better,  enlarged  In  mind  and  heart. 
This  out-of-door  ministry  finds  fitting  expres- 
sion In  lines  entitled,  "A  Shepherd's  Mountain," 
addressed  as  a  birthday  tribute  to  him  by  Miss 
Irene  Hardy,  and  published  In  her  volume,  en- 
titled 'Toems." 

"Forbid  me  not,  O  friend.  In  birthday  words 

of  praise, 
To  speak  In  allegory  thus  of  you. 
With    this    excuse, — to    wish    you    joy    and 

length  of  days. 

There  dwelt  a  shepherd,  once,  beside  the  sea. 
And  much,  they  said,  of  books  and  men  he 

knew  ; 
But  all  his  wisdom  fragrance  had  of  wood 
Or  field  or  mountain;  words  of  his  could  be 
Poetic  with  the  waving  of  a  flowering  tree, 
Or  strong  and  serious  like  the  bitter-good 
Of  herb  medicinal;  or  they  could  move 
With  the  majestic    motion    of    a    cloud,  to 

prove 
Majestic    truths;    but    oft    In    parable    they 

burned 


THE   PARSON   AT   PLAY  6S 

With  mountain  Images  sublime,  aglow 
With    light    that    always    Is;    and    oft    they 

turned 
To  holy  solitudes  upon  the  hels^hts,  to  show 
That  men  might  learn,  like  him,  to  go 
Where  they  could  meet  with  God,  and  know. 
And  now  his  words,  men  thought,  of  Shasta 

seemed, 
And    now    with    some    Imperial    Mountain 

gleamed. 
Whereof  he  knew  the  secret  places  best 
That  give  the  souls  of  men  supremest  rest." 

"In  the  great  contest  of  Hush  against  Rush," 
as  he  once  phrased  It,  "Nature  stands  serenely 
confident  of  her  ground."  And  he  stood  serenely 
with  her,  hushing  the  fevered  heart  of  life  with 
a  calm  caught  from  Nature  and  the  God  of 
Nature. 


CHAPTER  V. 

GRACE  SEASONED  WITH  SALT. 

It  Is  not  often  that  pastor  and  preacher  blend, 
in  the  same  man,  in  complete  balance  and  sym- 
metry. Either  the  pulpit  dominates  and  the 
shepherding  lags,  or  the  pastorate  shines  and 
the  preaching  does  not.  Doctor  McLean  united 
pastor  and  preacher.  If  the  pastor  was  of  the 
two  the  greater,  the  preacher  finely  reinforced 
and  supplemented  the  pastor. 

It  is  not  easy  to  overestimate  the  way  in  which 
these  two  offices  of  the  ministry,  when  thus 
matched,  aid  and  fulfill  each  other,  exerting  thus 
a  redoubled  influence.  Such  an  influence  Doctor 
McLean  exercised  over  his  own  people.  Far 
beyond  his  own  parish  also  he  was  known  and 
felt  through  his  pulpit — a  pulpit  which  became 
a  power  for  righteousness  in  the  city,  helping  to 
mold  its  standards,  political,  social  and  moral. 

The  preacher  himself  was  well  described  In 
an  Oakland  paper  as  follows : 

Fancy  a  man  tall,  straight  and  somewhat 
spare  in  build;  with  features  betokening  a 
Scotch  ancestry,  with  hair,  cranial  and 
facial,  silvered  neatly  by  Time's  magic 
touch.  Eyes  not  decided  blue  nor  gray, 
searching,  stern  in  glance  or  kindly,  as 
occasion  may  warrant.  Voice  of  manly 
timbre,  hypnotic,  disciplined.  Bearing  dig- 
nified yet   unaffected.      Manner   reserved, 


GRACE    SEASONED    WITH    SALT  67 


and  still  Inviting.  Language  concise  and 
precise.  Unpedantic,  not  prolix,  unassum- 
ing, aristocratic  in  carriage  and  demeanor, 
yet  democratic  in  address.  Not  a  hide- 
bound bigot  in  argument,  disposition  fierce, 
cruel,  mean,  but  a  gentle,  patient,  tolerant, 
eloquent,  conscientious  theologian.  In  civic 
life  thoroughly  imbued  with  progressive 
spirit,  observant,  sympathetic,  sagacious, 
active,  parental.  Oakland  is  indeed  to  be 
congratulated  that  it  numbers  Dr.  McLean 
among  its  citizens.  He  is  a  Christian  whose 
daily  life  is  honorable  in  every  detail,  whose 
motives  are  ever  noble,  whose  words  and 
deeds  in  his  vocation,  and  in  his  private 
transactions,  are  those  of  a  gentleman  of 
the  most  eclectic  stamp.  As  a  preacher,  he 
is  doing  lovingly,  generously,  benevolently 
for  his  flock,  and  the  sphere  of  his  en- 
deavors is  not  limited  to  his  official  juris- 
diction. For  the  seeds  that  he  sows  are  sent 
broadcast.  His  influence  is  always  uplift- 
ing. 

Dr.  McLean's  conception  of  the  rationale  of 
preaching  was  incidentally  but  clearly  given  in 
an  informal  address  which  he  made  to  a  com- 
pany of  fellow  ministers  who  once  gathered 
under  Mr.  Miller's  hospitality  at  the  Hotel 
Riverside  for  a  few  days  of  rest  and  conference. 
Speaking  to  this  company  of  the  way  in  which 
the  Bible  makes  its  great  appeal.  Dr.  McLean 
said: 


68  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

It  is  experience  appealing  to  experience. 
The  higher,  richer,  fuller  experience  speak- 
ing to  a  lower,  less  extensive.  It  is  experi- 
ence taking  advantage  of  certain  conditions 
that  are  common  to  the  communicator  and 
the  recipient,  and  making  these  the  vehicle 
and  instrument  of  imparting  a  richness 
known  to  one  but  as  yet  unknown  to  the 
other. 

The  same  might  be  said  of  the  pulpit  at  its 
best. 

If  one  were  to  attempt  to  enumerate  the  char- 
acteristic marks  of  Dr.  McLean's  preaching, 
perhaps  the  first  to  be  noted  would  be  its  manly, 
direct,  straight-forwardness.  There  was  no  use 
of  catchy  colloquialisms,  no  cheap  talking  down 
to  people,  no  sensationalism,  slang,  nor  striving 
for  effect;  yet  his  pulpit  utterance  was  terse, 
homely,  pithy,  arresting.  He  took  people 
where  he  found  them,  showed  them  to  them- 
selves and  set  forth  the  truths  and  values  of  the 
higher  life  in  an  original,  clear-cut,  convincing 
manner.  These  qualities  are  well  illustrated  in 
a  striking  sermon  upon  ''Faith  Overcoming  the 
World,"  an  extract  from  which  follows: 

I  am  frequently  asked,  as  being  compar- 
atively a  new-comer  here,  how  I  like  Cali- 
fornia. I  have  no  stereotyped  answer  to 
give,  but  if  the  thousand  and  one  replies  I 
have  made  to  the  question  were  to  be  con- 
densed into  a  single  one,  it  would,  I  sup- 
pose, be  something  like  this:  "I  like  Cali- 
fornia very  much;   I   like  its  climate,   Its 


GRACE    SEASONED    WITH    SALT  69 

scenery,  its  people;  but  I'm  afraid  it's  a 
rather  hard  country  to  do  church  work  in." 
You  see,  Cahfornia  is  largely  a  matter  of 
churches  with  me.  They  furnish  the  stand- 
point from  which  I  look  and  the  spectacles 
through  which  I  look  at  things.  Some  of 
the  rest  of  you,  I  am  afraid,  might  talk  all 
day  upon  your  impressions  of  California 
and  never  hit  upon  the  subject  of  churches! 
Precisely  so  with  the  world,  as  the  indi- 
vidual man's  faith  meets  it  in  conflict.  My 
faith  has  to  do  battle  in  a  world  of  my  own, 
your  faith  in  a  world  of  your  own;  and  so 
with  every  other  man. 

I,  for  example,  as  a  preacher  am  stand- 
ing aloof  from  business;  am  under  no  stress 
of  temptation  on  the  side  of  commercial 
dishonesty.  I  am  not,  by  my  calling,  flung 
into  temptation  with  men  who  are  taking 
the  short  cuts  to  money  getting.  It  takes 
no  particular  "faith"  for  me  to  be  honest 
in  dealings,  for  I  have  no  dealings;  there's 
no  pressure  against  me  on  that  side.  If  in 
my  position  I  were  to  turn  out  commerci- 
ally dishonest  it  would  argue  special  bad- 
ness in  me;  for  I  would  have,  as  it  were, 
to  go  into  it  in  cold  blood,  of  malice  pre- 
pense; which  is  a  great  deal  worse  than 
merely  to  yield  under  pressure  of  tempta- 
tion. I'm  under  none  of  the  temptations 
which  beset  fashionable  people;  of  setting 
up  for  style  and  trying  to  rival  my  neigh- 
bors in  display  and  equipage  and  all  that. 


TO  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

If  my  faith  had  no  pressure  except  what 
comes  against  that  side  of  it,  I'd  be  glad. 
I  don't  have  to  fight  against  the  things 
which  attack  men  in  political  life.  No- 
body thinks  of  offering  me  ten  thousand 
dollars  for  my  vote.  Nobody  wanting  to 
be  U.  S.  Senator  puts  into  my  hands  any 
wads  of  greenbacks  to  carry  to  a  friend  to 
start  a  bank  with,  or  lets  me  have  Pacific 
Railroad  stock  below  par!  In  placing  fa- 
vors "where  they  will  do  the  most  good," 
no  lobbyist  thinks  of  including  me  in  the 
distribution.  It  takes  no  particular  power 
of  faith  for  me  to  stand  clear  of  all  such 
things.  I  may  steer  clear  of  them  and  still 
be  as  "worldly"  as  any  of  the  men  who 
are  overcome  by  them.  Not  being  van- 
quished by  them,  I  may  be  vanquished  by 
the  "world."  My  "world"  obstructs  me 
upon  sides  altogether  different  from  those. 
But  here's  a  man  who  Is  In  business  and 
has  started  out  to  be  a  Christian  In  busi- 
ness; to  be,  whatever  else  he  may  fail  in, 
honest  and  truthful  and  square  in  dealing. 
He  finds  It  perhaps  slow  work  getting  on, 
on  that  basis.  Some  old  acquaintances, — 
no  sharper  men  than  he, — have  gone  into 
stocks  and  shot  up  like  rockets  and  have 
not  come  down  yet  but  are  still  scintillating 
In  the  most  brilliant  of  styles.  Men  all 
around  him  whom  he  knows  to  be  less  hon- 
est and  less  reliable  than  he  are  building  up 
large  fortunes  and  getting  ahead  famously. 


GRACE    SEASONED    WITH    SALT  71 

It  takes  a  good  deal  of  faith — of  seeing 
Him  that  Is  Invisible — to  keep  that  man  en- 
during.     "The  world"   takes   that   man's 
faith  just  where   it  passes  by  mine.      He 
deserves   a   hundred  times  the   credit   for 
keeping  his  Integrity  that  I  do. 
Dr.  McLean's  pulpit  stood  as  the  chief  pub- 
lic exponent  of  righteousness  In  the  midst  of  a 
new,  growing,  and  by  no  means  Arcadian  com- 
munity and  he  was  w^ell  aware  of  the  responsi- 
bility under  which  this  placed  him.    With  cour- 
age and  plainness  of  speech  he  upheld  the  old 
tradition   of   the  pulpit   as   the  place   for  out- 
spoken and  vigorous  rebuke  of  wrong  in  every 
form.      Dr.  Wendte,  pastor  of  the  Unitarian 
Church    of    Oakland,    writing    In    a    Unitarian 
journal   of    Dr.    McLean's    church,    under   the 
title,    "A   MetropoHtan   Church,"    said:      "He 
speaks  without  notes,  uses  direct  address,  seeks 
especially  to  impress  the  young  people  of  his 
congregation,  makes  great  use  of  the  topics  of 
the  day,   and  always  on  such  themes  displays 
great  sense  and  a  fine  moral  and  spiritual  in- 
sight." 

Impure  politics,  intemperance,  dishonesty, 
vice  in  every  form,  received  just  and  scathing 
rebuke  from  this  pulpit.  Selfishness,  especially 
In  the  form  of  luxury,  was  plainly  dealt  with; 
not  with  empty  denunciations  but  in  the  en- 
deavor to  protect  men  and  women  from  its  fatal 
effects.  In  a  sermon,  afterward  printed  in  one 
of  the  Oakland  papers,  from  the  text,  "Love 
not  the  World,"  Dr.  McLean  declared: 


T^  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

The  uncontrolled  luxuriousness  of  our 
age  Is  a  thing  to  be  looked  upon  only  with 
sorrow  for  the  present,  and  with  the  most 
anxious  forebodings  as  to  the  future.  We 
are  suffering  to-day,  here  In  America,  here 
In  California,  here  in  Oakland,  here  in  this 
First  Church  and  congregation,  from  over- 
love  of  the  things  of  the  world.  .  .  . 
In  the  legal  sense.  In  the  political  sense, 
the  wealthy  man's  wealth  is  his  own.  No 
one  can  question  his  right  to  It,  nor  his 
right  to  do  with  It  what  he  pleases.  The 
law  must  protect  him  In  all  that.  But  In 
a  higher  sense,  in  the  moral  sense,  in  the 
humane  sense.  In  the  gospel  sense,  the 
wealthy  man's  wealth  is  not  his  own,  no 
matter  how  honestly  he  came  by  it,  nor  how 
honestly  he  holds  it. 

Whether  preaching  strong  sermons  to  strong 
men,  or  tender  and  playful  sermons  to  children 
— for  it  was  his  habit  for  many  years  to  preach 
a  brief  sermon  to  the  little  folks — this  trained 
and  skillful  preacher  never  failed  to  be  concrete. 
He  was  an  adept  in  the  use  of  apt  Illustration. 
Sometimes  he  would  construct  a  whole  sermon 
about  the  suggestions  skillfully  drawn  out  of  a 
single  object,  or  group  of  objects,  as  In  a  ser- 
mon on  "Trees"  and  In  his  well-remembered  ser- 
mon on  "The  Orange."  His  children's  ser- 
mons were  upon  such  topics  as  "Sunflowers," 
"Butterflies,"  "Goldenrod,"  "Winged  Ants," 
"Little  Preachers  of  the  Wilderness."  In  this 
last,  he  Instanced  the  mason  wasp  as  a  preacher 


GRACE    SEASONED   WITH   SALT  73 

of  "wise  forecast,"  the  yellow  jacket  of  "fair 
play,"  the  midge  of  "making  the  most  of  op- 
portunity," and  the  caddis  of  "Immortality." 
One  of  his  friends  has  said  of  him :  "It  seems 
to  me  the  admirable  pastor  was  at  his  best  on 
his  big  church  platform  w^Ith  a  hundred  little 
children  about  him."  One  of  the  most  striking 
of  his  children's  sermons  found  Its  way  Into 
print.  It  was  on  "Fog  Children,"  and  was.  In 
part,  as  follows: 

What  I  wish  to  say  to  you  this  morning 
is  that  there  are  two  kinds  of  fog.  One 
kind  which  God  makes,  another  kind  which 
we  make  ourselves.  It  is  of  this  last  kind 
that  I  must  speak.  It  settles  down,  not  upon 
the  hills  and  trees  and  plants,  but  upon  our 
spirits  and  our  temper.  It  is  not  an  outside 
fog,  but  an  inside  fog.  It  makes  darkness, 
not  over  the  land  and  In  the  sky,  but  makes 
darkness  In  our  minds  and  In  our  homes. 
It  is  just  as  chilly  and  uncomfortable  and 
dismal  a  kind  of  fog  as  the  other.  If  any- 
thing, it  is  more  so.  Did  you  ever  see  any 
fog  of  this  kind,  boys  and  girls?  Do  you 
know  any  children  about  your  size  and  age 
who  are  very  apt  to  be  out  of  sorts  a  good 
deal  of  the  time, — Impatient,  and  discon- 
tented, and  grouty,  and  rather  cross  and 
touchy?  If  you  have  ever  seen  that  kind 
of  boy  or  girl  you  know  something  about 
this  second  kind  of  fog.  It  is  always  foggy 
weather  where  such  children  are.  They  are 
little  fog-making  machines.    It  Is  foggy  at 


74  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

home  where  they  live,  at  the  school  where 
they  go  to  school,  on  the  play-ground 
where  they  play,  and  a  small  cloud  of  fog 
even  goes  along  the  street  where  they  go. 
They  are  regular  fog  children.  One  can 
almost  hear  a  fog-horn  groan  whenever 
they  speak.  It  is  dreadfully  dismal.  Don't 
you  think  so?  We  cannot  manage  the  out- 
side fogs;  we  can  these  inside  fogs.  We 
cannot  with  our  hands  make  a  chimney 
through  the  mist,  up  to  where  the  sun  is 
shining;  but  we  can  make  an  opening  right 
up  through  this  other  vapor,  down  which 
the  sweet  sunshine  of  God's  spirit  will 
come  and  make  our  whole  mind  and  heart 
and  soul — yea,  and  body,  too,  like  a  warm, 
bright  May  morning. 

It  was  one  of  Dr.  McLean's  delights  to  fer- 
ret out  some  obscure  but  vital  fact,  or  incident, 
or  character,  and  with  artistic  and  human  touch, 
bring  out  its  real,  though  hidden,  significance. 
One  of  the  best-known  sermons  of  his  later  years 
was  upon  "The  Man  with  the  Pitcher,"  (Mark 
14:  13-15),  in  which  he  gave  to  that  little  ap- 
preciated individual  unique  reality  and  made  of 
him  the  type  of  a  class  of  the  least  known  but 
most  serviceable  persons  in  the  Kingdom. 

Another  marked  characteristic  of  Dr.  Mc- 
Lean's preaching  was  Its  catholicity,  freedom 
and  breadth  of  outlook.  There  was  nothing 
narrow,  negating,  repressive  in  it.  It  had  the 
freshness  of  the  out-of-doors  and  the  breadth 
of  vision  of  the  mountain  tops.     Provincialism 


GRACE   SEASONED   WITH    SALT  75 

was  utterly  alien  to  the  man.  A  wide  reader,  he 
kept  in  touch  with  current  life  and  literature, 
and  especially  with  men  and  events.  His  study 
was  a  place  to  lace  world  problems,  not  to  shut 
them  out,  and  his  mingling  with  men  was  to 
learn  as  well  as  to  teach. 

In  looking  through  the  long  list  of  his  sermon 
topics,  one  is  struck  by  the  variety  and  scope, 
ranging  from  Intimate  messages  to  the  soul  to 
discussions  of  world  issues  and  cosmic  problems. 
If  on  one  Sunday  his  sermon  was  upon  *'GlorI- 
ous  California,"  the  next  it  was  upon  Forgive- 
ness of  Sin."  Yet  who  would  say  there  was  no 
connection  between  the  two? 

His  sermons  to  young  people  throbbed  with 
the  spirit  of  hope  and  glowed  with  noble  vision. 
The  subject  of  a  sermon  at  Stanford  University 
was,  "Shamgar:  Living  at  the  Top  of  Our  Pos- 
sibilities." A  baccalaureate  sermon  at  the  same 
university  was  entitled,  "The  Noble  Army  of 
Intercessors,"  from  the  text  Isa.  59:  16-17.  A 
stirring  sermon  to  the  graduates  of  the  Horton 
School  of  Oakland  In  1897,  on  "Purpose,  Plan, 
Power,  Prayer,  Perseverance" — a  pod  of  P's, 
as  he  called  them — presented  the  principles  of  a 
well-directed  life  with  peculiar  pertinence,  per- 
spicacity and  persuasiveness. 

Unquestionably  one  of  Dr.  McLean's  most 
characteristic  sermons  was  that  preached  at  the 
sixty-fourth  anniversary  of  the  American  Home 
Missionary  Society  at  Saratoga,  N.  Y.,  June  3, 
1890,  entitled,  "The  Fountain  Opened  in  the 
Midst  of  the  Valley,"  (Isa.  41 :  17-20).   Broad 


76  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

and  statesmanlike  In  scope,  vivid  In  feeling, 
graphic  and  picturesque  In  diction,  it  depicted 
certain  aspects  of  California,  natural  and  spirit- 
ual, In  an  Incomparable  way.^ 

With  these  robust  Intellectual  qualities,  re- 
vealing breadth  of  outlook  and  knowledge  of 
men,  one  would  hardly  expect  to  find  also  the 
mystical  temper,  the  spiritual  insight  which  is 
the  secret  of  the  most  Intimate  power  of  the  pul- 
pit. And  yet  this  spiritual  quality  was  not  only 
present  in  Dr.  McLean,  as  we  have  already  dis- 
covered, but  it  was  the  heart  and  soul  of  his 
preaching.  One  has  but  to  look  through  the  list 
of  his  subjects,  preserved  with  great  care  in  two 
long  blank-books,  and  then  to  taste  the  quality 
of  his  sermon  notes,  to  find  that  they  were  spirit- 
ual messages  and  not  discourses  about  religion. 
This  Is  the  side  of  Dr.  McLean's  preaching 
that  one  finds  reflected  in  the  little  booklet, 
^'Earnest  Words  from  Helpful  Sermons," 
printed  by  the  Ladies'  Aid  Society  of  the  First 
Church  In  1887,  ^"^  in  the  ''Extracts  from  Our 
Pastor's  Sermons,  from  the  Note-Book  of  a 
Hearer,"  published  in  the  Church  Record.  Here 
are  swift  Insights  into  spiritual  truth  and  dis- 
closures of /personal  experience  of  rare  worth. 
Among  such  gleanings,  taken  from  "Earnest 
Words,"  are  these: 

It  Is  not  at  our  Bethels  that  God  comes 
down  to  us;  It  is  only  at  our  Bethels  that 
we  wake  up  to  God.  We  talk  of  our  times 
of  meeting  God,  of  the  day  when  God  first 
came  to  us.    We  mean  by  it  only  the  time 

*  The  sermon  was  published  in  pamphlet  form  by  the  Society. 


GRACE    SEASONED    WITH    SALT  11 

when  we  came  to  our  senses  and  saw  God. 
Our  real  successes  come  as  the  Kingdom 
of  God  comes,  without  observation.  Nei- 
ther can  we  say  to  them,  "Lo  here,"  or  "Lo 
there,"  for  behold  they  He,  as  the  Kingdom 
of  God  does,  within  us. 

Men  do  not  stumble,  by  any  lucky  acci- 
dent, Into  goodness.  They  become  good 
only  through  purposing,  through  determin- 
ing, through  resolving,  to  be  so.  But  if 
they  fall  with  a  purpose,  what  would  they 
do  without  a  purpose? 
In   an   attractive   sermon   on   "Consider  the 

Lilies  of  the   Field,"   Dr.   McLean  drew  this 

comparison : 

I  think  this  to  be  the  great  lesson  of  the 
lilies — their  glory  an  inward  glory  lodged 
in  their  very  spirit,  streaming  out  from  their 
life — a  part  of  the  lily's  self — not  an  ad- 
ventitious beauty,  but  an  inherent  beauty, 
all  the  good  they  could  get  woven  into  their 
being.  Here  is  the  mistake  men  make  in 
ordering  their  lives, — they  do  not  compel 
the  great  good,  God  furnishes,  in  the  serv- 
ice of  spirit;  they  do  not  vitalize  It  and 
make  it  a  permanent  part  of  themselves. 
They  are  content  to  be  like  artificial  flow- 
ers,— like  a  stick  with  paper  blossoms  stuck 
Into  the  earth,  ii  which  is  no  life,  which 
has  no  perfume,  which  the  first  shower 
smashes  into  nothingness,  a  pretense  of 
glory,  and  not  real  glory. 


78  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

The  note-taker  for  the  Church  Record  caught 
and  preserved  many  gleams  of  spiritual  wisdom, 
— these  among  others: 

You  cannot  test  Christianity  by  treatises, 
nor  by  comparison  with  other  religions,  nor 
by  philosophy;  but  If  you  can,  for  one  glad 
hour,  one  glad  minute,  enter  Into  the  con- 
sciousness of  that  love  which  says,  "Come 
unto  me,"  you  may  indeed  know  It. 

Hopes  do  die,  It  is  true,  but  not  without 
estate.  And  not  without  will  and  testa- 
ment. In  which  we  who  cherished  them  are 
well  remembered. 

Many  of  the  dark  problems  of  this  life 
never  will  be  solved  for  us  here.  If  we  ex- 
pect to  know  it  all.  It  Is  as  If  those  who 
saw  the  foundation  of  Cologne  cathedral 
should  have  expected  to  understand  the 
whole  plan  to  Its  completion;  or  as  if  those 
who  saw  the  half-completed  plan  should 
expect  to  know  the  perfected  structure  and 
all  Its  secrets. 

It  is  not  Death  we  need  to  fear  but  Life. 
Living  is  the  solemn  thing,  not  dying.  Dy- 
ing is  but  letting  go. 

As  an  ampler  illustration,  both  of  the  matter 

and  manner  of  Dr.   McLean's  preaching,   the 

following   extract   from   a   sermon   preached  at 

the  conclusion  of  his  fortieth  year  In  the  ministry 

will  serve  better  than  any  attempt  at  description : 

"One  thing  have  I  desired  of  the  Lord; 

that  will  I  seek  after;  that  I  may  dwell  in 

the  house  of  the  Lord  all  the  days  of  my 


GRACE    SEASONED   WITH   SALT  79 

life;  to  behold  the  beauty  of  the  Lord,  and 

to   Inquire   in   His  holy  temple."      Psalm 

27:  4. 

The  forty  years'  life  of  this  church  happens 
to  synchronize  almost  precisely  with  the  forty 
years  of  my  own  life  as  pastor.  On  that  9th 
of  December,  forty  years  ago  to-day,  when  the 
devoted  company  of  seventeen  persons  gathered 
in  the  little  sanctuary,  still  standing  on  Ninth 
Street,  to  unite  themselves  in  Christian  fellow- 
ship, I — all  unconscious  that  an  event  was  tak- 
ing place  which,  more  than  almost  any  other 
that  could  happen,  was  to  shape  and  qualify  my 
life — was  a  student  at  Princeton  Seminary,  close 
upon  my  graduation.  In  those  same  subsequent 
days  in  which  Dr.  Mooar  was  breaking  his 
heart  and  the  hearts  of  a  deeply  attached  peo- 
ple by  preparing  to  depart  out  of  a  New  Eng- 
land pastorate  and  come  over  here  to  nurse  and 
succor  this  infant  church,  I  was  concluding  an 
arrangement  with  some  people  in  an  altogether 
different  frame  of  mind  about  entering  a  New 
England  pastorate,  —  in  order  that  having 
served  due  apprenticeship  I  might,  later,  come 
and  be  Dr.  Mooar's  successor  and  the  inheritor 
here  of  his  noble  work. 

So  the  occasion  Is  to  me  one  of  double  review 
and  I  know  no  words  which  one  could  so  fittingly 
adopt  for  a  motto  after  making  such  a  review 
as  those  words  in  the  first  part  of  this  passage: 
"One  thing  have  I  desired  of  the  Lord" — one 
thing  supremely  desired  of  Him — "that  will  I 
(supremely)  seek  after,  that  I  may  dwell  In  the 
house  of  the  Lord  all  the  days  of  my  life." 


80  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

In  that  "house  of  the  Lord"  which,  as  a  nov- 
ice, I  entered  forty  odd  years  ago,  I  supremely 
want  to  stay.  It  has  been  to  me  a  goodly  con- 
nection, full  of  all  priceless  satisfactions.  I 
don't  want  to  lose  my  holding  there.  I  hope  to 
be  known  as  of  that  guild,  or  that  company,  all 
the  days  of  my  life.  Here,  before  you,  I  beg 
to  revoice  that  aspiration  and  to  reavow  that 
unalterable  resolve. 

**That  I  may  behold  the  beauty  of  the  Lord, 
and  inquire  in  His  holy  temple."  That's  the 
vocation  and  the  natural  history  of  a  soul  in 
process  of  true  religious  development;  such  a 
soul  is  a  beholder  of  the  beauty  of  the  Lord 
and  is  seeking  to  inquire  still  further  "in  His 
holy  temple." 

There  are  three  things  I  would  like  to  briefly 
say  in  relation  to  the  matter  of  the  intensive 
religious  growth. 

I.  The  first  is  that  such  growth  will  consist 
primarily  in  the  development  of  moral  percep- 
tion. 

Since,  therefore,  religious  truth  makes  its  ap- 
proach on  the  side  of  spiritual  perception,  the 
first  and  basal  growth  in  religious  life  will  be 
increase  in  the  capacity  for  such  perception. 

It  is  not,  of  course,  that  the  truth  itself  grows. 
For  God's  truth,  like  God  Himself  is  infinite 
from  the  beginning,  and  so  has  no  room  nor 
call  for  growth.  The  real  growth  is  in  the  per- 
ceiving soul,  in  its  capacity  for  perception.  And 
It  is  to  this  perceiving  capacity  that  truth  pro- 
gressively unfolds  itself.    And  the  thing  of  chief 


GRACE    SEASONED    WITH   SALT  8l 

Importance  to  be  said  to  you  here  is  that  this 
increase  of  capacity  for  the  perception  of  truth 
may  be  made  perennial.  There  is,  to  the  soul 
which,  dwelling  In  the  holy  temple,  makes  Itself 
qualified  to  perceive  them,  absolutely  no  end,  no 
limit  to  the  possibilities  of  truth-disclosure.  In 
the  fixed  sciences  end  and  limit  may  be  found, 
but  not  within  those  lines  where  truth  is  vital. 
Here  no  truth  Is  circumscribed  and  no  truth  is 
final;  but  at  its  topmost  advance  it  Is  still  germ- 
inal, like  all  the  living  twigs  on  all  the  living 
vines  and  living  trees  and  living  shrubs  to-day 
in  nature.  Every  one  of  them,  even  those  far- 
thest up  in  the  bleak  northland,  Is  cherishing, 
snugly  wrapped  In  from  wintry  storm  and  cold, 
next  spring's  leaf-bud.  Every  twig  which  has 
life  in  it,  holds  within  a  prophecy  and  prepara- 
tion for  the  bursting  forth  of  more  life.  Next 
year's  leaf,  next  year's  blossom,  next  year's  fruit, 
— they  are  all  lying  simply  dormant  to-day; 
ready  to  waken  just  so  soon  as  spring  shall  give 
the  signal.  Like  that  Is  the  higher  truth  in  all 
of  its  departments  and  all  of  its  ramifications. 
Nothing  is  final.  That  which  seems  so  to-day, 
or  this  year,  or  In  this  generation,  will  to-morrow 
or  next  year  or  next  generation  disclose  Itself  as 
only  germinal.  And  so  normal  religious  growth 
is  at  its  initiative  a  dwelling,  steadfastly,  in  the 
household  of  the  Lord,  with  earnest  purpose 
and  patient  setting  of  the  mind  to  behold  the 
beauty  of  the  Lord,  and  still  further  to  inquire 
in  His  holy  temple. 


82  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

2.  With  accruing  capacity  for  spiritual  per- 
ception, comes  Increment  of  spiritual  energy. 
First,  power  to  see,  and  with  it,  power  to  do. 
"Abide  in  me,"  said  Jesus  to  the  disciples. 
'*Ablde  in  me  and  I  in  you."  "I  am  the  vine 
and  ye  are  the  branches;  he  that  abldeth  in  me, 
and  I  in  him,  the  same  beareth  much  fruit." 
Capacity  is  given  him ;  an  ever  Increasing  amount 
of  capacity.  The  three-year-old  vineyard  may 
be  expected  to  yield  some  grapes;  that  which  is 
four  years  old,  to  yield  more;  but,  under  proper 
culture,  in  six  or  seven  years,  much  more. 
"Greater  things  than  these  shall  ye  do,"  said 
Jesus  again  as  He  was  about  to  go  away.  That 
is  normal  Christian  development;  with  a  con- 
tinually increasing  disposition  and  ability  to 
know  more,  a  correspondent  Increase  of  disposi- 
tion and  ability  to  do  more. 

3.  Naturally  upon  these  two  in  normal  Chris- 
tian growth  follows  Increased  volume  of  being. 
To  see,  to  do,  to  become;  that  is  the  established 
order  in  true  religious  development.  Increase 
in  volume,  in  tone,  and  in  quality  of  being.  Per- 
ennial increase  in  quantity  and  quality  of  spirit- 
ual being, — that  seems  the  final  goal  in  religious 
development. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

BUILDER  AND  ADMINISTRATOR PIONEERING, 

INSTITUTION    BUILDING  AND 
ADMINISTRATION. 

*'John  Knox  McLean :  Eleven  years  a  Chris- 
tian minister  in  the  Eastern  States;  thirty-three 
years  in  California;  seventeen  years  president  of 
the  Pacific  Theological  Seminary;  since  its  be- 
ginning, member  of  the  State  Board  of  Charities 
and  Corrections  and  since  1906  its  president. 
Of  statesmanlike  oversight  regarding  the  or- 
ganization of  professional  education;  patient 
guide  and  counselor  of  young  men,  marked  with 
his  own  virility;  effective  supporter  of  all  good 
civic  causes ;  sturdy  man  of  wisdom  and  common 
sense." 

With  these  words  the  degree  of  Doctor  of 
Laws  was  conferred  upon  President  McLean  by 
President  Wheeler  at  the  fiftieth  commencement 
of  the  University  of  California,  May  17,  19 13. 
Well  considered  emphasis  is  laid  by  them  upon 
one  of  Dr.  McLean's  chief  traits, — his  wise  and 
statesmanlike  constructiveness.  He  was  a  pio- 
neer, a  builder, — one  of  the  architects  of  the 
Pacific  Coast  civilization. 

This  kind  of  service  was  due  to  no  accident. 
It  was  the  man's  own  chosen  and  cherished 
work.  Writing  to  Mayor  Mott  of  Oakland, 
one  of  his  First  Church  boys,  after  his  own  life 
work  was  completed,  he  said: 


84  JOHN   KNOX   MCLEAN 

I  had  ten  times  ten  rather  be  the  builder 
of  a  vital,  worthful,  permanent  structure 
which  has  promise  of  life,  than  to  merely 
conduct  the  biggest  finished  thing  which  the 
skill  of  man  can  construct. 
He  was  quite  willing  to  leave  the  pinnacles  to 
some  one  else,  as  he  once  remarked  to  the  writer, 
if   he  could   only  have   a   hand — out  of  sight 
though  he  might  be — in  laying  the  foundations. 
His  own  churches  in  Springfield  and  Oakland, 
especially  the  latter,  were,  of  course.  Dr.  Mc- 
Lean's  chief   pioneering   achievements.      True, 
the  Oakland  church  was  already  firmly  estab- 
lished at  his  coming,  and  under  the  wise  and 
gracious  care  of  his  predecessor.   Dr.   Mooar, 
was  growing  normally  and  vigorously.     Never- 
theless, his  characteristic  methods,  his  new,  fresh 
lines  of  work,  his  original  and  unique  adapta- 
tions to  the  community  and  environment,  gave 
to  Dr.  McLean's  pastorate  the  freedom  and  in- 
dividuality of  a  pioneering  enterprise. 

Work  like  this  was  by  no  means  confined  to 
his  own  field.  He  was  closely  connected  with 
the  wider  interests  of  his  denomination.  He  was 
a  delegate  to  the  First  International  Congrega- 
tional Council,  which  met  in  London  in  1891, 
and  Assistant  Moderator  of  the  Second  Congre- 
gational Council  which  met  in  Boston  in  1899. 
He  was  also  a  corporate  member  of  the  Ameri- 
can Board  of  Commissioners  for  Foreign  Mis- 
sions and  a  vice-president  of  the  American  Home 
Missionary  Society.  Though  without  perman- 
ent official  appointment,  he  was  practically  the 


BUILDER   AND   ADMINISTRATOR 


General,  the  Bishop,  for  many  years,  of  the 
churches  of  his  order  in  Northern  Cahfornia; 
counselor  and  participant  in  the  formation  of 
almost  every  new  church,  in  the  choice  of  pastors 
and  the  settlement  of  difficulties,  he  gave  him- 
self generously  and  whole-heartedly  to  the  tasks 
of  a  wider  ministry.  As  his  friend,  Rev.  E.  S. 
Williams,  wrote  of  him:  "No  one  from  Puget 
Sound  to  Coronado  Beach  ever  carried  the 
churches  of  Jesus  Christ  on  his  heart  more  ten- 
derly or  listened  more  eagerly  to  their  calls  for 
help.  With  the  very  light  of  Heaven  in  his  face 
his  serious  feet  were  on  God's  earth  for  service. 
If  a  country  pastor  had  an  erring  boy  who  had 
been  long  enough  at  San  Quentin,  John  Knox 
McLean  would  look  up  the  facts  and  spare  the 
time  to  go  and  see  the  Governor  in  his  behalf."  ^ 
As  moderator  of  church  councils,  conferences 
and  assemblies,  he  served  as  sky-pilot  on  a  mul- 
titude of  occasions,  rough  and  smooth.  In  rais- 
ing church  debts  he  was  a  Samson  and  was  often 
called  upon  to  rend  the  lion  of  approaching 
bankruptcy. 

For  many  years  he  was  a  Director  of  the  Cali- 
fornia Home  Missionary  Society  and  was  presi- 
dent of  the  California  Chinese  Mission  from  its 
formation  until  1901.  In  the  charities  of  Oak- 
land he  was  keenly  interested,  and,  more  than 
any  other,  was  the  founder  of  the  Associated 
Charities  of  Oakland  and  its  president  from 
1884  to  1894. 

His  constructive  service  for  higher  educa- 
tion was  second  only  to  that  in  behalf  of  the 

1  The  Pacific,  March  4,  1914. 


JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 


church.  He  was  Instrumental  in  the  establish- 
ment of  Pomona  College  and  for  ten  years  a 
trustee.  Whitman  College  in  Washington  and 
Pacific  University  at  Forest  Grove  in  Oregon 
felt  the  strength  of  his  hearty  support  and  coun- 
sel. For  several  years  he  was  a  trustee  of  Mills 
College  and  from  1887  until  1897  a  Director  of 
the  State  Institution  for  the  deaf,  duqib  and 
blind.  In  the  remarkable  up-building  of  the 
University  of  California,  through  his  intimacy 
with  Presidents  Daniel  C.  Oilman,  Horace 
Davis,  Martin  Kellogg  and  others  of  its  leading 
men,  and  through  his  influence  upon  the  students 
and  in  other  ways,  he  was  a  strong  force  in  the 
life  of  the  institution.  In  extending  congratula- 
tions to  him  upon  his  seventieth  birthday,  Presi- 
dent Wheeler  wrote : 

I  appreciate  more  than  I  can  tell  you, 
what  you  have  been  to  the  university  and 
the  university  community,  and  what  you 
have  been  to  me,  as  stay,  counselor  and 
friend. 

It  was,  however,  in  his  service  to  Pacific  The- 
ological Seminary,  of  which  he  became  presi- 
dent in  1893,  that  he  accomplished  the  most 
important  work  of  his  life,  next  to  that  of  the 
pastorate.  With  this  institution  he  was  identi- 
fied from  his  very  coming  to  California,  having 
been  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  since 
1872  and  its  president  from  1880  to  19 10.  This, 
again,  was  to  a  large  degree  pioneering  work. 
Pacific  Seminary  was,  to  be  sure,  by  no  means  an 
infant  institution  when  he  assumed  the  presi- 


BUILDER   AND   ADMINISTRATOR  §7 

dency.  It  was  founded  in  1866  and  began  its 
work  of  instruction  in  1869.  But  its  pioneer 
days  were  of  unusual  length.  It  was  obliged  to 
struggle  against  great  obstacles,  financial  and 
otherwise,  and  while  it  was  nobly  manned  and 
began  its  career  under  three  of  the  largest- 
minded  and  most  devoted  men  who  ever  guided 
an  institution, — Doctors  Benton,  Mooar  and 
Dwinell, — still  its  lack  of  student  material,  its 
isolation,  and  other  causes  kept  it  from  the  de- 
velopment that  might  otherwise  have  been 
attained. 

Upon  assuming  its  leadership,  President  Mc- 
Lean made  a  thorough  study  of  the  history,  as- 
sets and  opportunities  of  the  institution  and  came 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  very  best  plan  for  its 
success  would  be  its  removal  to  Berkeley,  in  or- 
der that  it  might  come  into  as  close  affiliation  as 
possible  with  the  University  of  California.     In 
a   statesmanlike   paper   advocating   this   course, 
President  McLean  presented  to  the  trustees  the 
following  among  the  reasons  for  the  change : 
To  state  briefly  the  conclusion  to  which 
my  own  mind  has  been  brought  by  long 
continued  study  of  our  situation :    We  must 
get  at  those  sources  of  student  supply.    We 
must  spiritually   fertilize   these   great  uni- 
versity fields.      We   must   open   up   some 
straight  and  narrow  path  leading  out  of  the 
broad  and  traveled  road  that  now  carries 
this  great  multitude  of  students  into  secu- 
lar life  and  the  secular  professions.     We 
must  inoculate  their  atmosphere  with  some 


JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 


sort  of  moral  germ.  We  must  gird  our- 
selves, go  out  into  the  highway  and,  In  the 
gospel  sense,  compel  students  to  come  In. 
We  have  lived  perched  up  In  our  segrega- 
tion long  enough. 

It  was  a  daring  step — especially  as  it  in- 
volved leaving  a  magnificent  site  on  Seminary 
Hill  In  Oakland,  endeared  by  long  association — 
and  naturally  met  with  serious  questioning  and 
firm,  though  not  bitter,  opposition.  But  Dr. 
McLean  took  the  question  out  into  the  open, 
secured  a  strong  endorsement  of  leading  clergy- 
men and  educators  and  finally  carried  the  day 
with  the  good  will  of  all  Involved.  In  1901  the 
seminary  opened  its  work  in  a  commodious  build- 
ing, not  far  from  the  university  campus.  Not 
the  least  of  the  advantages  of  the  removal — 
and  this,  too,  w^as  largely  due  to  President  Mc- 
Lean— was  the  hospitable  attitude  and  favor- 
able terms  under  which  it  was  welcomed  by  the 
University. 

The  seminary  being  thus  securely  and  happily 
transferred  to  Berkeley,  President  McLean's 
next  endeavor  was  to  lift  Its  scholarship,  already 
good,  to  a  still  higher  plane,  In  order  that  it 
might  maintain  university  standards.  For  this 
purpose  he  sought,  with  great  care,  to  secure  for 
the  faculty  the  best  equipped  men  he  could  find 
for  the  purpose. 

One  of  the  most  far-seeing  and  eminently  suc- 
cessful enterprises  of  President  McLean  was  the 
creation  of  an  amply  endowed  lectureship,  to  be 
conducted  by  the  seminary,  by  means  of  which 


BUILDER  AND  ADMINISTRATOR  89 

an  annual  course  of  lectures  upon  religious,  lit- 
erary, social  and  theological  topics,  second  to 
none  of  its  kind  in  the  country,  might  be  offered 
for  the  benefit  of  the  seminary,  the  churches, 
university  and  the  community.  In  this  project 
he  found  a  generous  and  large-minded  co-opera- 
tor in  the  person  of  another  of  his  First  Church 
young  men,  Mr.  Edwin  T.  Earl  of  Los  Angeles. 
Through  his  munificent  gift  the  E.  T.  Earl 
Lectureship  has  become  of  national,  even  of  in- 
ternational reputation  and  influence. 

This  was  but  one,  though  the  largest,  of  ad- 
ditional resources  secured  for  the  seminary  by 
Dr.  McLean.  When  the  great  disaster  of  April 
18,  1906,  consumed  in  a  few  hours  the  accumu- 
lations of  years  about  San  Francisco  Bay  and 
crippled  so  many  institutions  and  enterprises,  it 
did  not  leave  Pacific  Seminary  unscathed.  An 
endowment  fund  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars,  to  be  raised  by  Dr.  McLean  among 
his  friends,  was  well  in  progress  when  that 
blinding  catastrophe  Intervened.  In  spite  of  the 
disaster,  however,  the  sum  of  approximately  one 
hundred  and  seventy  thousand  dollars  was  added 
to  the  funds  of  the  seminary  during  his  admin- 
istration. A  gift  of  peculiar  fitness  to  the  sem- 
inary was  the  presentation  by  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Mc- 
Lean of  their  beautiful  home  on  Channing  Way, 
— the  deed  of  which  was  conveyed  to  the  trus- 
tees In  1909, — to  serve  as  the  President's  home. 

With  these  ends  accomplished.  President  Mc- 
Lean, though  feeling  that  it  was  no  time  for  self- 
congratulation  or  for  relaxing  effort,  began  to 


go  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

regard  the  Institution  as  firmly  established  and  to 
look  forward  to  Its  future  with  joyful  assurance. 
At  the  inauguration  of  Professors  Bade,  Buck- 
ham  and  Laughlln,  January  23,  1905,  President 
McLean  in  inducting  the  new  professors  into 
their  several  chairs  said: 

A  generation  of  men  is  but  the  childhood 
of  an  institution.    Pacific  Seminary  Is  a  gen- 
eration old.     It  has  accomplished  its  child- 
hood.    It  has  demonstrated  its  right  and 
power  to  be.     It  has  gained  resources.     It 
has  won  standing.     It  is  no  longer  a  proph- 
ecy but  an  entity,  no  longer  a  hope,  but  a 
fact.     It  is  indeed  drawing  well  on  toward 
that  point  where  it  may  lay  claims  to  stand 
under  the  divine  maxim :    To  him  that  hath 
shall  be  given  and  he  shall  have  abundantly. 
In  a  word  It  no  longer  needs  to  spend  time 
and  strength  in  wondering  if  it  may  live,  but 
Is  free  to  go  on  living,  forgetting  the  things 
that  are  behind  in  a  noble  outreach  toward 
those  that  are  before, — namely  Its  own  sanc- 
tified and  opulent  fulfillment. 
The  conception  of  the  position  and  work  of  a 
theological  seminary  cherished  by  President  Mc- 
Lean Is  admirably  set  forth  in  an  able  and  in- 
fluential paper  which  he  presented  before  the 
Conference  of  Congregational  Seminaries  of  the 
United  States  and  Canada  at  St.  Louis  in  1900. 
The   paper  was   entitled,    "The   Presidency   of 
Theological    Seminaries,"    and    was    afterward 
published  in  the  Bihliotheca  Sacra.    In  this  paper 
President  McLean  outlined  so  satisfactorily  the 


BUILDER  AND  ADMINISTRATOR  QI 

duties  and  functions  of  the  then  newly  established 
office  of  the  presidency  of  a  theological  seminary 
that  his  views,  embodied  in  a  set  of  resolutions, 
were  unanimously  adopted  by  the  conference.  His 
contention  was,  in  brief,  that  the  duties  of  the 
president  of  a  seminary,  as  of  a  college  or  uni- 
versity, should  be  primarily  those  of  an  admin- 
istrator of  an  institution.  The  entire  presenta- 
tion exhibits  the  alertness  and  grasp  of  a  busi- 
ness man  rather  than  the  tone  of  a  veteran 
pastor,  and  yet  it  lifted  Into  the  highest  atmos- 
phere the  true  place  and  work  of  the  seminary, 
as  Indicated  in  these  words: 

College  work  is   the   higher  education, 
seminary  work  the  highest  education.    The 
seminary  Is  a  department  of  the  university, 
its  supreme  department.     Its  province  is  to 
deal  with  the  loftiest  and  the  most  import- 
ant of  all  the  sciences.     Other  professions 
and  other  callings  touch  life  upon  one  of  Its 
sides,  the  calling  of  the  minister  touches 
life  upon  all  of  Its  sides. 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  presence,  the  in- 
struction and  the  influence  of  such  a  man  In  the 
daily  life  of  the  seminary  were  priceless.     Fac- 
ulty and  students  were  one  In  their  admiration 
and  affection  for  their  leader.    In  recognition  of 
his  seventieth  birthday,  the  Trustees  and  Fac- 
ulty gave  him  a  dinner  at  the  old  Palace  Hotel 
in   San   Francisco   over  which   Professor,   now 
President,  Nash  presided, — an  occasion  abound- 
ing in  the  good  fellowship  and  outspoken  affec- 
tion and  honor  which  Dr.  McLean's  personality 


92  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

always  Induced,  though  never  invited.  At  the 
chapel  services  following  his  birthday  the  stu- 
dents presented  him  with  a  loving  cup,  accom- 
panying it  with  the  heartfelt  declaration:  "We 
love  you,  not  alone  for  what  you  have  done  for 
us,  but  for  the  example  you  set  for  us  in  culture, 
dignity  and  saintliness  of  character." 

Following  his  retirement  from  the  presidency 
the  alumni  gave  Dr.  McLean  a  book  of  remem- 
brance, beautifully  bound  in  silk  and  parch- 
ment and  inscribed  with  these,  among  other  fit- 
ting words : 

Your  eighteen  years'  of  service  have  been 
fruitful  and  enriching  to  the  institution  and 
those  who  have  studied  therein.  The  men 
who  have  sat  at  your  feet  have  received 
such  an  ideal  of  the  Christian  ministry  and 
such  a  vision  of  its  possibilities  as  can  never 
be  effaced  but  must  add  power  and  dignity 
to  their  ministry. 

In  19 1 2  Dr.  McLean  was  elected  by  the 
trustees  President  Emeritus  of  the  seminary. 

Still  another  work  of  pioneering,  alluded  to 
by  President  Wheeler,  deserves  further  mention. 
In  1903  Dr.  McLean  was  appointed  by  Gov- 
ernor Pardee  a  member  of  the  first  California 
State  Board  of  Charities  and  Corrections.  He 
was  elected  chairman  of  the  Board  in  1906,  re- 
taining that  office  until  his  resignation  from  the 
Board  in  19 10.  Referring  to  this  public  serv- 
ice after  its  completion.  Governor  Pardee  said: 
"To  what  a  high  place  of  effectiveness  did  he 
elevate  the  State  Board  of  Charities  and  Cor- 


MACLEAN'S  CROSS 

lONA,  ARGYLESHIKE 


The  oldest  Christian  relic  in  Scotland,  assigned  to  the  period  of  St.  Columba, 

a  reproduction  of  which  has  been  set  in  Mountain  View  Cemetery,  looking 

out  over  Oakland  and  Berkeley  to  the  Golden  Gate,  as  a  memorial  to 

JOHN  KNOX  McLean 


BUILDER  AND  ADMINISTRATOR  93 

rections!  He  was  its  guiding  head  and  the  ex- 
cellent results  he  produced  will  long  bear  fruit. 
Above  all,  he  kept  that  Board  in  the  proper 
channel.  How  easy  it  would  have  been  for  it  to 
have  become  a  political  nuisance.  But  never 
under  the  guidance  of  Doctor  McLean!  The 
improvements  he  made  are  manifold." 

Thus  this  "effective  supporter  of  all  good 
civic  causes"  laid  the  foundations  upon  which 
other  men  are  building.  Pastor  Emeritus,  Presi- 
dent Emeritus,  he  was  also  Pioneer  Emeritus. 
Yet  the  man  will  not  easily  be  forgotten  in  his 
work.  For  he  rose  head  and  shoulders  above 
the  foundations  upon  which  he  worked.  And 
as  they  rose  they  lifted  him. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

LIKE  A  TREE. 

The  author  of  the  First  Psalm  wins  universal 
assent  when  he  likens  a  good  man  to  a  tree, 
planted  by  the  rivers  of  water.  With  every 
repetition,  the  words  take  on  fresh  truth  and 
fitness.  Friends  of  Dr.  McLean  have  been  fond 
of  attaching  this  comparison  to  him,  owing 
partly,  perhaps,  to  a  certain  erectness  and  sym- 
metry of  stature,  partly  to  his  own  love  of  trees, 
partly  to  a  certain  calm  and  freshness  in  him,  as 
of  one  living  under  the  open  sky.  The  com- 
parison attaches  to  him  so  naturally  that  we  will 
make  use  of  it  in  etching  some  of  his  character- 
istic qualities. 

His  character  was  firmly  rooted  in  the  soil  of 
reverence.  From  boyhood  he  was  nourished 
upon  spiritual  realities.  He  neither  could,  nor 
would,  abandon  these.  From  them  sprang  the 
stability  and  sanity  and  strength  of  his  life.  Con- 
fidence in  the  spiritual  side  of  life  grew  rather 
than  diminished  in  him. 

This  is  illustrated  by  his  comment  in  connec- 
tion with  the  wide-spread  discussion  that  fol- 
lowed ex-President  Eliot's  address  on  "The  Re- 
ligion of  the  Future,"  in  1909.  President  Mc- 
Lean was  asked  by  a  newspaper  correspondent 
to  express  his  judgment  upon  the  issue.  In  his 
address.  President  Eliot  took  the  ground  that 
the  religion  of  the  future  would  be,  far  more 


LIKE   A   TREE  95 


than  at  present,  a  humanitarian  religion,  in 
which  science  and  service,  good  will  and  good 
deeds  would  predominate  over  creed  and  wor- 
ship. In  commenting  upon  this  view,  Dr.  Mc- 
Lean said: 

I  believe  that  our  most  regular  and  best 
conducted  churches  are  at  fault,  sadly  so 
— as  churches  and  as  members  much  more 
addicted  to  saying  'Lord,  Lord,'  and  to  eat- 
ing and  drinking  in  His  presence  than  to 
seeking  out  and  succoring  the  outcast,  the 
unfortunate  and  suffering.    So  far  with  Dr. 
Eliot     ....     but  no  more.      I   dis- 
card no  'mysteries'  great  or  small  in  our 
current   Christianity;   more   of  the   super- 
natural do  I  believe  in,  rather  than  less. 
In  the  case  of  some  men  religion  seems  to 
lend  unnaturalness  rather  than  genuineness,  sen- 
timentality rather  than  strength,  to  their  lives. 
Not  so  with  Doctor  McLean.     "The  deep  heart 
of  existence  beat  forever  like  a  boy's"  in  him, 
because  of  his  vital  faith  in  God  and  the  eternal 
verities.     He  could  never  look  at  life  merely  on 
its  material  side,  although  he  did  not  fail  to  give 
that  side  its  proper  place.     A  sagacious  com- 
ment of  his  upon  the  discovery  of  gold  in  Cali- 
fornia was  to  the  effect  that: 

Next  after  the  finding  of  gold  and  silver 
in  California,  the  greatest  blessing  to  our 
State  has  been  the  finding  an  end  of  it.  No 
greater  calamity  could  possibly  befall  us 
now — I  mean  not  only  morally  and  socially, 
but  financially   also — than   the  finding  of 


96  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

new  deposits  equal  in  richness  to  the  old. 
Providential     goodness     is     visible,     and 
equally  so  at  both  ends,  in  the  gold  discov- 
ery and  in  the  gold  exhaustion. 
Out  of  his  faith  in  the  great  spiritual  verities 
sprang  his  ideals,   hopes,   visions, — that  which 
one  of  his  friends  characterized  as  "his  power 
of  seeing  things  and  making  others  see  them.'* 

The  trunk  of  this  tree  was  as  firm  as  Its  roots 
were  deep.  "Here  Is  a  man  of  integrity,"  was 
the  verdict  of  all  who  knew  him.  Although  he 
was  prominently  before  the  public  for  forty 
years,  there  never  was  a  shadow  of  suspicion 
cast  upon  his  good  name.  Straight  and  strong 
he  stood  before  the  eyes  of  the  community,  like 
a  sturdy  oak  or  redwood. 

"All  men  loved  him;   falsehood's  aim 
Did  not  shatter  his  good  name." 

A  normal  man  is  much  more  like  a  tree  than 
like  a  shaft  of  marble;  for,  like  a  tree,  he  is  al- 
ways growing.  Born  and  bred  and  trained  un- 
der the  old  theological  regime.  Dr.  McLean  was 
one  of  the  comparatively  few  men  of  his  day 
who  passed  naturally  and  happily  over  into  the 
new  order, — a  test  which  so  many  able  and  in- 
telligent men  have  failed  to  meet. 

In  the  presence  of  great  intellectual  and  re- 
ligious changes,  many  men  remain  stationary  or 
swing  violently,  by  a  process  of  reaction,  from 
one  extreme  to  the  other.  Not  so  with  Dr.  Mc- 
Lean. Far  from  radical  in  his  temperament  and 
judgments,  he  yet  had  the  freedom  and  cath- 


LIKE   A   TREE  97 


ollclty  of  spirit  to  welcome  the  new  day  with  all 
the  best  it  had  to  bring,  leaving  behind  "the 
narrow  ways  of  the  lesser  mind."  On  the  whole 
and  especially  in  later  years  he  would  have  been 
called  a  liberal-conservative,  although  he  was  in 
no  sense  either  a  technical  or  a  polemic  the- 
ologian. Breadth  and  openness  of  mind  char- 
acterized his  attitude  toward  new  truth.  The 
larger  implications  and  bearings  of  evolution, 
for  example,  appealed  strongly  to  him.  As 
early  as  1889,  when  so  many  ministers  were  at- 
tacking evolution,  he  declared:  "Revelation 
and  evolution  stand  at  one." 

One  of  the  most  interesting  events  in  his  ca- 
reer, theologically,  was  his  friendly  controversy 
with  his  neighbor.  Rev.  Charles  W.  Wendte, 
pastor  of  the  First  Unitarian  Church  of  Oak- 
land, over  the  issue,  Unitarianism  vs.  Evangel- 
icalism. The  two  were  excellent  friends,  and 
labored  together  most  amicably  in  the  organized 
charities  of  the  city.  But  they  belonged  to  op- 
posing camps,  theologically,  and  could  not  quite 
forget  that  they  were  supposed  to  uphold  their 
respective  ecclesiastical  banners.  The  most 
striking  features  in  Dr.  McLean's  conduct  of 
the  controversy — well  matched,  too,  by  his  op- 
ponent— were  his  good  nature,  on  the  one 
hand,  his  keenness  of  wit  and  vigor  of  as- 
sault on  the  other,  and  above  all  the  spirit  of 
liberality  and  progress  in  which  he  construed 
evangelicalism.  In  a  sermon  on  "The  Evan- 
gelical Faith,"  for  example,  preached  In  his 
pulpit  January  6,  1889,  In  replying  to  the  charge 


98  JOHN   KNOX    MCLEAN 

that  the  Evangelical  Faith  was  in  an  unsettled 

state,  the  preacher  said: 

Revision  and  recension  of  beliefs  is  both 
a  mark  and  a  means  of  growth  and  prog- 
ress. It  is  the  tree  which  no  longer  makes 
new  wood  that  is  marked  for  decay.  And 
the  trees  which  make  wood  do  also  drop 
wood.  You  know  the  forest  is  my  friend 
and  teacher.  Well,  a  regularly  orthodox 
forest  drops  as  many  of  its  outputs  as  it 
keeps.  Getting  done  with  lower  limbs  it 
lets  them  go,  and  puts  the  released  vitality 
into  new  ones  higher  up.  And  so,  too,  with 
its  rings  of  sap  wood  made  new  each  year; 
the  tree  crowds  off  the  old  bark  for  a  room- 
ier inclosure.  But,  my  friends,  all  the  while, 
the  heart  of  the  tree  never  changes  to  an- 
other kind  of  a  heart,  the  species  of  the 
tree  to  another  species !  I  have  haunted  the 
woods  these  thirty  years  and  have  never 
found  yet,  and  never  expect  to,  any  amount 
of  growth  transforming  an  oak  tree  into  a 
birch  or  pine  or  bass  wood!  Its  heart  of 
oak  is  always  heart  of  oak.  Let  our  Christ- 
rooted  faith  grow,  manifesting  and  aug- 
menting its  exuberant  vitality.  I  see  in 
that  no  menace  lest  it  grow  the  great,  di- 
vine heart  of  it  out  of  itself;  or  lest  it  trans- 
form itself  into  another  species  of  faith  or 
into  any  new  "world  order!" 
The  kind  of  influence  and  wisdom  which  Dr. 

McLean    possessed   would   have   made    him    a 

marked  man  in  many  a  field.     "He  was  uni- 


LIKE   A   TREE  99 


versal  In  his  tastes  and  accomplishments,"  re- 
marked Hon.  Warren  Olney  of  him.  He  was  the 
type  of  man,  as  President  Nash  has  said  of  him, 
who  would  have  won  large  Influence  and  success 
in  the  United  States  Senate.  As  an  editor  he 
would  have  ranked  among  the  men  who  com- 
mand wide  attention  by  reason  of  clearness  of 
vision  and  pungency  of  statement.  An  especially 
striking  evidence  of  the  latter  capacity  is  afforded 
by  a  paper  of  his  before  the  Berkeley  Club  upon 
"The  Vice  of  Newspaper  Reading."  In  this 
paper,  after  granting  to  the  full  the  value  and 
advantage  of  newspaper  reading  of  the  right 
kind  and  In  moderate  measure, — declaring  that 
"even  the  angels  might  profitably  spend  some 
time  with  a  right  daily  paper," — he  goes  on  in 
crisp,  telling  sentences  to  point  out  the  vicious 
effects  of  newspaper  reading  as  it  Is  generally 
conducted.  He  indicts  It,  In  the  first  place, 
"as  an  insatiate  and  illimitable  consumer  of 
time,  and  of  the  best  time,"  declares  that  "the 
most  that  is  read  out  of  a  newspaper  by  the 
average  reader  Is  not  material  for  thought,  or 
information,  or  vital  interest  of  any  sort.  .  .  ." 
"The  vice  of  the  newspaper,"  he  says,  "is  that  It 
creates  a  morbid  mental  and  moral  appetite  and 
then  furnishes  the  appetite  so  created  with 
seductive  food  which  tends  still  further  to  debase 
and  debauch."  To  this  he  adds:  "I  do  not 
know  but  after  all  the  chief  viclousness  of  the 
current  newspaper  reading  lies  In  the  education 
of  the  public  mind  away  from  the  practice,  first, 
and  from  the  power,  second,  of  any  continuous, 


JOHN    KNOX     MCLEAN 


consecutive  thought.'^  The  paper  Is  full  of  good 
humor  and  playful  jibes;  its  keenness  and  force 
might  well  be  envied  by  any  newspaper  man. 

Politically  and  socially  Dr.  McLean  was 
frankly  and  fearlessly  progressive.  A  friend  of 
Susan  B.  Anthony  and  woman  suffrage,  he  stood 
for  the  larger  recognition  of  the  place  and  work 
of  woman  long  before  the  cause  emerged  from 
obscurity  and  unpopularity.  In  a  paper  read  be- 
fore the  Berkeley  Club,  he  strongly  advocated 
the  inclusion  of  a  large  representation  of  women 
on  the  university  Faculty. 

When  the  new  social  movement  began,  in  the 
eighties,  it  found  in  Dr.  McLean  hearty  sym- 
pathy and  support.  Always  outspoken  and  earn- 
est in  behalf  of  true  social  democracy,  he  hailed 
the  message  of  the  prophets  of  the  new  day  when 
it  first  appeared,  with  enthusiasm,  and  arranged 
a  course  of  lectures  in  his  church  upon  "The 
Christian  State."  This  was  in  harmony  with 
his  whole  attitude  toward  social  progress.  The 
charge  of  indifference  to  the  social  message  of 
Christianity  can  never  be  laid  at  the  door  of  Dr. 
McLean,  or  the  First  Church  of  Oakland.  This 
man  was  no  reed  shaken  by  the  wind.  As  his 
friend.  Dr.  Dille,  said  of  him,  one  of  his  most 
salient  characteristics  was  his  dauntless  courage : 
"Gentle  as  a  woman,  he  was  as  brave  as  a  lion 
when  the  right  needed  defense  or  wickedness 
merited  rebuke.  He  was  as  gallant  a  knight  of 
Christian  chivalry  as  ever  laid  lance  in  rest.  He 
could  no  more  have  lived  in  a  truckling,  time- 
serving atmosphere  than  he  could  have  breathed 


LIKE   A    TREE 


in  a  vacuum.  The  distance  between  such  a  man 
and  a  self-seeking  ministry  is  hemispherical." 

From  this  strong  trunk  sprang  sheltering  and 
beneficent  branches  —  gentleness,  kindness, 
brotherllness,  sympathy — and  the  rest.  For,  to 
use  one  of  Dr.  McLean's  own  terms  to  his  stu- 
dents, his  w^as  a  life  of  self-forthputting-7iess. 
Here  was  a  man  naturally  reserved, — as  his 
Scotch  nature  led  him  to  be, — who  not  only  had 
warm  and  kindly  feelings  towards  others  but 
who  had  by  dint  of  long  and  unselfish  discipline 
mastered  the  art  of  expressing  them;  a  man  who 
had  learned  how  to  live  close  to  other  people, 
of  all  kinds,  and  draw  them  within  the  circle  of 
his  own  abounding  sympathy  and  good  will. 

To  make  friends  everywhere,  and  to  keep 
them  when  made,  to  hold  one's  resources  and 
oneself  open  and  ready  to  give  to  anyone  and 
everyone,  to  be  serviceable  but  not  cheap,  out- 
giving but  not  effusive,  Is  one  of  the  finest 
achievements  of  life.  Dr.  McLean  won  It.  His 
life  showed  that  he  had  resolved 

"To  live  in  a  house  by  the  side  of  the  road 
And  be  a  friend  to  man." 

Many  memorable  Instances  of  his  unselfish 
service  of  persons  in  the  parish  and  community 
are  recalled  by  his  older  friends.  One  was  that 
of  his  great  kindness  to  a  gentleman  whose  mind 
was  unbalanced  and  whose  day  was  likely  to  be 
shadowed  after  the  reading  of  the  morning 
paper  (enough  surely  to  cloud  any  sensitive 
mind)   unless  he  could  be  quieted  and  cheered 


102  JOHN  KNOX  MCLEAN 

by  some  especially  sanltive  influence.  This  of- 
fice Dr.  McLean  voluntarily  took  upon  himself, 
and  every  morning  for  a  considerable  time 
would,  at  the  right  moment,  project  his  cheer- 
ing presence  into  his  friend's  day  and  thus  save 
it  from  cheerlessness  and  gloom.  Here  was  the 
practice  of  psychotherapy  long  before  its  formal 
advent. 

Effective  help  was  extended  by  Dr.  McLean 
to  persons  who  were  trying  to  overcome  the 
drink  habit.  One  case  in  particular  is  recalled 
by  Dr.  McLean's  older  friends.  The  foreman 
of  a  printing  office  who  was  apparently  hope- 
lessly in  slavery  to  drink,  went  to  Dr.  McLean 
and  after  a  long  talk  took  the  pledge, — not,  at 
first,  indefinitely  but,  by  the  Doctor's  insistence, 
for  a  month,  then  for  three  months,  then  for  a 
year  and  then  for  good.  The  owner  of  the 
printing  plant,  upon  witnessing  the  result,  de- 
clared that  if  the  Doctor  would  open  an  estab- 
lishment for  the  cure  of  inebriates  he  would 
outdo  every  Keeley  cure  institution  in  existence. 

This  pastoral  genius  believed  that  there  is 
good  in  every  one  if  only  it  can  be  discovered 
and  brought  out,  and  his  success  in  doing  it  jus- 
tified his  faith.  "In  the  most  indifferent,  out- 
wardly," he  once  said,  "there  is  some  spark  of 
spiritual  life.  Some  favorable  moment  makes 
it  grow.  Sage  brush  fields  were  once  thought  to 
be  incapable  of  cultivation.  Now  it  is  believed 
that  land  which  will  grow  sage  brush  will,  if 
watered,  produce  anything."  He  turned  much 
sage  brush  soil  into  spiritual  fertility. 


LIKE   A    TREE  IO3 


Many  have  borne  tribute  to  the  kindness  of 
the  veteran  pastor;  none  more  fully  and  finely 
than  his  successor,  Dr.  Charles  R.  Brown.  In 
his  sermon  at  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the 
church,  Dr.  Brown  declared: 

Had  my  own  father  been  named,  not  for 
Benjamin  Franklin  as  he  was,  but  for  John 
Knox,  and  if  his  last  name  had  been  Mc- 
Lean and  he  had  been  standing  in  this 
man's  shoes,  with  this  man's  hold  upon 
this  community,  he  could  not  have  done 
more  in  those  opening  months  and  years  of 
my  own  pastorate  to  help  establish  me  in 
the  hearts  of  this  people.  And  that  kind- 
ness has  been  constant  and  beautiful 
through  all  these  years. 

Among  the  branches,  abundant,  umbrageous, 
beautiful, — the  foliage.  The  true  foliage  of 
life,  its  real  attractions  and  graces,  are  not 
superficially  attached  to  one's  personality;  they 
grow  out  of  his  rooted  faith  and  proper  sub- 
stance. They  are  the  natural  leafage  of  the 
soul,  disclosing  its  inner  life  and  quality. 

That  Dr.  McLean  was  a  man  of  faith  and 
integrity  and  sympathy  was  indeed  the  main 
cause  of  the  beneficent  effects  of  his  life;  but 
that  is  by  no  means  all.  Others  have  had  these 
qualities  in  as  great  a  degree  who  have  not 
drawn  men  to  themselves  as  he  did.  The  win- 
some and  companionable  qualities  were  his, 
both  by  grace  and  by  nature.  A  Scotchman 
parishioner  of  Dr.  McLean's  once  described  him 
as  a   "fu'  witted  mon."      Doubtless  he  meant 


104  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

more  by  this  than  humor,  but  certainly  this 
must  be  included  as  a  good  part  of  his  pastor's 
fu'  wittedness. 

It  is  surely  a  priceless  contribution  to  this 
world  of  human  intercourse, — which  so  many 
people  seem  bound  to  make  hum-drum  by  com- 
monplace treatment  of  it, — when  one  appears 
who  looks  at  life  with  some  degree  of  originality 
and  comments  upon  it  in  other  terms  than  the 
saw-dust  of  ordinary  conventionality.  Dr.  Mc- 
Lean added  to  the  zest  as  well  as  the  genuine- 
ness of  life  by  being  himself  and  by  letting 
others  see  that  he  meant  to  be  himself  and  to 
see  things  through  his  own  eyes.  Stale  and 
stereotyped  forms  of  thought  and  speech  never 
gained  control  of  his  native  individuality.  Even 
the  weather  became  interesting  when  he  spoke 
of  it. 

The  sparkle  of  his  kindly  wit  and  genial  com- 
araderie  has  cheered  the  prosy  paths  of  every- 
day drudgery,  as  well  as  the  hours  of  social  com- 
panionship, for  all  who  came  within  the  circle 
of  his  friendship.  At  repartee  he  was  alert  and 
keen.  Finding  him  one  day  in  the  seminary 
library  with  one  of  the  volumes  of  that  once 
familiar  book  of  Bible  comments,  "Barnes* 
Notes,  Explanatory  and  Practical,"  I  ventured 
to  say  to  him,  "What,  Doctor,  do  you  use 
Barnes'  Notes?"  Quick  as  a  flash  came  the 
reply:  "I  take  down  my  Barnes  to  build 
greater." 

"Humor  is  a  great  buffer,"  once  remarked 
a  Scotch  minister.     It  served  Dr.  McLean  as  a 


LIKE   A    TREE  I05 


buffer  in  his  contacts  with  men  of  all  sorts;  it 
served  him  also  as  something  better  than  a  buf- 
fer,— as  a  magnet.  It  is  not  always  regarded 
a  token  of  the  distinctively  Christian  spirit  to 
cultivate  light-heartedness  and  "provoke  one 
another"  to  fun  and  frolic.  And  yet,  in  Dr. 
McLean  mirth  showed  its  religious  side.  To 
provoke  a  smile  certainly  is  one  way  of  expelling 
a  despondent  spirit.  He  never  hesitated  to 
preach  and  to  practise  a  fun-loving  faith.  As 
The  Congregationalist  remarked  of  him,  edi- 
torially, "He  was  the  man  to  whom  in  the  days 
of  his  prime  local  interests  of  various  sorts  looked 
for  counsel  and  support;  and  along  with  his  mul- 
tifarious public  labors  were  to  be  found  invari- 
ably a  sunniness  of  spirit,  a  gentleness  of  ap- 
proach to  others,  an  unbounded  affection  that 
went  out  to  rich  and  poor,  high  and  low  alike."  ^ 
He  wrote  not  only  sermons,  Sunday-graphs ^ 
that  had  in  them  many  a  touch  of  playfulness; 
but  also  " M onday-graphs /'  published  in  The 
Pacific,  full  of  sparkle  and  of  the  wisdom  of 
every  day  philosophy,  with  comments  on  life  as 
he  saw  it  in  the  street  and  on  the  ferries  and 
trains.  In  one  of  these  ''Monday-graphs'^  there 
is  a  chatty  description  of  a  bird  store  on  Kearny 
Street  into  whose  window  he  used  often  to  gaze 
with  boyish  absorption.  In  the  course  of  the 
description  he  has  this  to  say  of  the  kind  of  in- 
terest he  took  in  nature: 

I  cannot  tell  you  the  names  of  the  birds 
at  411  Kearny  Street.  And  I  am  glad  I 
cannot.     It  so  takes  away  all  romance  and 

^  Dr.  McLean,  a  Pacific  Coast  Leader,  February  26,  I9i4- 


io6 


JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 


all  Interest  from  a  bird  to  be  told  Its  name. 
You  can  Imagine  anything  you  please  about 
it,  so  long  as  you  do  not  know  what  to  call 
it,  or  whence  It  came.  But  some  meddle- 
some fellow  comes  along,  and  tells  you  that 
the  brilliant  red  and  yellow  specimen  you 
are  admiring  Is  a  Psittacus  Cyanocephalus ; 
or  that  the  singer,  whose  tones  you  so  much 
affect,  Is  an  Alanda  Arvensis!  What  are 
you  to  do;  the  subject  Is  exhausted.  You 
can  feel  no  earthly  Interest  In  the  bird  after 
you  have,  so  to  speak,  turned  him  that 
thoroughly  inside  out.  He  becomes  a 
squeezed  orange  to  you;  a  plaster  dog 
whose  bark  you  know  all  about.  I  once 
began  to  study  botany;  but  I  had  to  stop  It. 
There  were  ever  so  many  flowers  whose 
Latin  order,  class  and  species  came  up  be- 
fore me  every  time  I  saw  them.  What's 
a  flower  to  you,  after  you  have  been  made 
aware  that  it  is  a  Nemopanthus  Vertlcllla- 
tus,  for  example;  or  a  Castllllga  Septen- 
trlonalls,  belonging  to  the  general  order, 
Schrophularlpoese !  The  consciousness  of 
knowing  all  about  It,  so  robs  the  poor 
flower  of  beauty  and  fragrance,  too.  I  am 
happy  to  say  I  have  forgotten  all  my  bot- 
any before  this,  and  flowers  are  just  flowers 
to  me  once  more ;  pinks  are  pinks,  and  dan- 
delions, dandelions.  I  almost  lost  respect 
for  the  biggest  Big  Tree  when  it  was  re- 
vealed to  me  that  It  was  but  a  Sequoia 
GIgantea.  No  use  to  run  a  string  around 
the  trunk  after  that. 


LIKE   A   TREE  IO7 


Among  these  spontaneous  products  of  a  wise 
and  happy  spirit,  is  a  capital  sketch  worthy  of 
publication  as  a  tract  for  Christmas,  upon,  "The 
Man  Without  a  Bundle."  After  a  lively  de- 
scription of  the  people  with  bundles,  the  anti- 
hero  appears: 

And  now,  right  in  the  midst  of  all  this 
hilarity,  came  the  one  poor  forlorn  creature 
without  any  bundle,  the  abomination  of 
desolation  standing  where  he  ought  not! 
If  he  had  seemed  too  poor  to  be  able  to 
have  a  bundle,  I  shouldn't  have  pitied  him 
so  much,  for  then  I  could  have  supposed 
that  he  had  the  Christmas  feeling  within 
his  heart;  in  which  case  empty-handedness 
signifies  less.  But  for  a  man  who  could 
have  a  bundle  and  had  none,  there  ap- 
peared no  possible  mitigation  of  misery. 
He  tried  his  best  to  look  cheerful,  and  not 
to  appear  an  object  of  pity.  He  whistled 
feebly.  He  stuck  his  hands  in  his  pock- 
ets. He  stalked  off  with  an  air  of  great 
bravado.  But  it  was  all  of  no  use.  He 
was  so  evidently  Nobody's  Man — no- 
body's son,  nobody's  father,  nobody's 
brother,  nobody's  lover,  nobody's  neighbor 
— that  it  was  impossible  not  to  discern  the 
fact  and  to  feel  due  compassion  for  the  fel- 
low. He  wore  very  much  the  air  of  a  de- 
tected defaulter.  All  the  year  through  he 
had  mingled  among  folks  and  managed  to 
keep   the   forlornness  of  his  condition  to 


I08  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

himself.      Now,   however,   like   any  other 

crime.    It    had    come    out,    and    he    stood 

abashed. 

It  was  this  minister's  creed  as  well  as  his  cus- 
tom to  "put  a  cheerful  courage  on"  and  keep  It 
on.  From  even  a  funeral  he  aimed  to  banish 
the  leaden  hopelessness  and  gloom.  It  is  related 
of  him  by  a  fellow  minister  that  on  one  occa- 
sion they  were  called  upon  to  conduct,  together, 
the  funeral  of  a  good  old  man  who  had  been 
connected  with  the  church  for  many  years. 
During  the  service  the  choir,  or  some  member 
of  it,  sang  a  most  dismal  and  dreary  funeral 
song  entitled,  "Wandering  Down,"  the  refrain 
of  which  ran: 

"We  are  wandering  down,  we  are  wander- 
ing down. 
We  are  wandering,  wandering  down." 

The  sense  of  sombreness  and  dreariness  grew 
deeper  and  deeper  during  the  singing  of  this 
doleful  selection  until,  at  its  close.  Dr.  McLean 
arose  to  speak,   and,  turning  to  the  chorister, 

said:      "Mr.   I   wish  you  wouldn't 

sing  that  song.  It  isn't  true.  Our  brother  Isn't 
wandering  down,  he's  climbing  up/'  Whereat 
the  sense  of  gloom  was  suddenly  dissipated  and 
the  light  of  hope  and  trust  began  to  dawn. 

The  tree  was  not  flawless.  What  tree,  or 
man.  Is?  Not  many  men  were  readier  than  he 
to  acknowledge  faults  and  mistakes  and  rectify 
them.  The  double  loyalty  to  institutions  and  to 
Individuals  is  often  hard  to  preserve.     Dr.  Mc- 


LIKE    A    TREE  iOQ 


Lean  may  at  times  have  seemed  inconsiderate  to 
individuals.  If  so,  it  was  owing  to  his  sense  of 
duty  to  the  institutions  he  was  appointed  to 
serve. 

Such  a  life  cannot  be  fruitless.  It  reproduces 
spiritually  after  its  kind.  It  is  in  time  obliged 
to-  submit  to  inevitable  outward  decay,  but  not 
until  it  has  looked  down  on  its  natural  and 
spiritual  successors. 

With  his  warm  love  for  children,  it  was  one 
of  the  joys  of  Dr.  McLean's  later  years  to  wel- 
come and  cherish  grandchildren  of  his  ow^n.  His 
only  child,  Mary,  congenial  and  beloved  com- 
rade of  her  father,  married  Warren  Olney,  Jr., 
of  Oakland,  on  October  24,  1899,  and  two 
grandsons,  John  McLean,  born  February  23, 
1902,  and  Warren  Olney,  3d,  born  February 
25,  1904,  came  to  slip  their  hands  in  his  and 
start  out  in  life  under  his  tutelary  smile.  The 
arrival.  May  22,  19 13,  of  a  little  granddaugh- 
ter, Constance  Sarah,  completed  the  joy  of  the 
grandparents'  hearts. 

These  off-shoots  of  his  own,  joining  the  larger 
circle  of  his  spiritual  children  deepened  for  him 
the  interest  of  the  long  future,  with  its  promise 
of  the  time  when, 

"A  loftier  race 
Than  e'er  the  world  hath  known  shall  rise, 
With  flame  of  freedom  in  their  souls 
And  light  of  knowledge  in  their  eyes." 

As  one  thinks  of  the  multiplication  of  spiritual 
forces  and  influences  passing  from  the  strong 


no  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

lives  that  must  be  cut  off,  to  their  successors,  one 
of  Dr.  McLean's  forest  experiences  comes  to 
mind: 

The  past  summer,  in  one  of  my  custom- 
ary Mount  Shasta  jaunts,  I  encountered  a 
sight  which  filled  my  heart  with  sadness, 
and  at  first  almost  with  dismay.  Upon  a  cer- 
tain flat,  often  visited,  near  the  McCloud 
River,  I  found  a  group  of  noble  trees, 
which  for  these  years  past  I  have  rejoiced 
in,  all  girdled.  Already  their  tops  were 
yellowing  and  sicklying  over  with  the  pale 
hue  of  death.  I  greatly  mourned  to  see 
these  noble  friends  of  mine  so  doomed, 
their  life  currents  so  cut  off.  They  had 
been  the  pride  of  the  forest,  and  my  pride. 
It  was  scarcely  a  fancy  of  mine,  I  think, 
that  they  stretched  out  their  great  arms 
appealingly  to  me,  who  had  loved  them  so 
well,  and  so  often  slept  beneath  their 
shelter.  I  grieved  that  I  could  not  give 
them  rescue.  But,  even  as  I  grieved,  only 
a  short  way  out  upon  the  right  and  even 
underneath  these  same  death  marked  trees, 
I  beheld  a  marvel,  a  parable.  The  sand,  al- 
ways when  I  had  seen  it  aforetime,  dry, 
drifting  and  verdureless,  had  by  some 
special  fortune  of  good  season,  been  lately 
fertilizing  its  pine  seeds,  and  was  covering 
itself  with  a  wide,  dense  growth  of  baby 
pines.  There  were  hundreds  of  them. 
Hundreds  upon  hundreds.  Six  inches, 
twelve  inches,  two  feet  and  three  feet  high, 


LIKE   A    TREE  HI 


all  coming  on  tumultuously !  For  every 
giant  girdled  a  thousand  infant  growths 
stood  pressing  forward  to  supply  its  place. 
I  said  to  myself,  "it's  a  great  pity  to  lose 
these  fine  trees;  but  the  prospects  are  that 
we  shall  still  have  forests!" 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

AT  SUNDOWN. 

Until  the  last  year  or  two  of  his  life,  it  was 
given  to  Doctor  McLean  to  experience  to  the 
full  the  joys  and  serenities  of  age. 

He  was  often  to  be  met  going  about  the 
streets,  walking  slowly  but  erect  as  of  yore,  en- 
joying the  beauty  of  the  California  sky  and  the 
Berkeley  hills  and  gardens,  stopping  to  speak 
kindly  and  playfully  to  the  children  whom  he 
passed,  and  not  forgetting  to  greet  the  dogs, — 
for  he  was  always  a  lover  of  animals.  "Every 
day  is  more  beautiful  than  the  last,"  he  re- 
marked one  day  to  a  friend  whom  he  met.  The 
trees  and  shrubbery  and  flowers  about  his  own 
home  and  neighborhood  were  constantly  under 
his  affectionate  scrutiny.  The  lethargy  of  age 
sometimes  fell  upon  him,  but  the  face  of  a  friend 
was  potent  to  dispel  it  and  rouse  again  within 
him  the  old  sense  of  comradeship  and  pleasure. 
He  often  spoke  of  his  happiness  and  of  the 
greatness  of  his  blessings.  He  kept  up  his  at- 
tendance at  church  and  at  the  Berkeley  Club 
meetings.  Sometimes  he  took  the  familiar  way 
to  the  seminary  and  gave  the  faculty  and  stu- 
dents a  greeting  of  cheer.  He  loved  to  see  the 
university  students  thronging  the  campus,  the 
sense  of  their  abounding  vitality,  in  contrast 
with  his  own  weakness,  giving  him  not  self-com- 
miseration but  sympathetic  pleasure. 


AT    SUNDOWN  113 


The  ripening  of  his  life  and  the  rounding  out 
of  its  active  services  gave  opportunity  for  the 
expression  of  the  affection  and  honor  which  had 
been  accumulating  about  him  through  the  years, 
such  as  few  men  receive.  It  became  a  habit, 
after  Dr.  McLean  had  passed  the  age  when 
flattery  is  possible,  to  lavish  gratitude  upon  him, 
upon  every  available  occasion.  As  he  himself 
once  characteristically  put  it,  his  friends  were 
always  saying:  "Here's  this  old  chap  again, 
let's  give  him  a  good  time."  Banquets  were 
held,  speeches  made,  verses  written,  gifts  pre- 
sented, letters  sent  to  him  as  often  and  as  co- 
piously as  opportunity  offered.  Nothing  too 
good  could  be  said  of  him.  He  was  called  "first 
citizen  of  Oakland,"  "first  citizen  of  Califor- 
nia," "statesman,"  "counsellor,"  "minister  of 
the  manifold  grace  of  God."  On  the  program 
of  the  banquet  given  him  upon  his  retirement 
from  the  presidency  of  Pacific  Seminary  was  the 
well-chosen  couplet: 

"You  hear  that  boy  laughing?     You  think 
he's  all  fun; 
But  the  angels  laugh,  too,  at  the  good  he 
has  done." 

All  this  the  Doctor  bore  with  the  modesty  and 
unfluttered  calm  that  characterized  him,  saying 
little  in  response,  but  that  little  from  the  heart, 
showing  that  he  returned  amply  all  the  love  that 
flowed  out  toward  him. 

Among  the  many  letters  of  congratulation  re- 
ceived in  connection  with  the  twenty-fifth  anni- 


"4  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

versary  of  his  coming  to  California,  and  with 
the  observance  of  his  seventieth  birthday,  the 
following  have  been  selected,  not  only  because 
of  the  light  they  throw  upon  the  character  and 
work  of  Dr.  McLean,  but  because  of  their  re- 
flection of  the  writers : 

March  25,  1904. 
Dear  Dr.  McLean: 

Across  the  continent  I  reach  my  hand  In 
greeting  and  congratulation.  I  am  not  glad 
that  you  are  seventy  years  old,  but  I  am  re- 
joiced that  you  have  lived  your  life  and 
done  your  work,  and  I  devoutly  wish  that 
you  might  be  spared  to  us  for  twice  seventy 
years  more  to  continue  your  beneficent  and 
blessed  ministry.  No  man  among  us  is 
more  universally  honored  and  loved,  and 
no  man  more  richly  deserves  the  apprecia- 
tion which  he  receives.  I  have  seen  you  on 
the  top  of  Mt.  Hood,  and  now  I  see  you 
on  a  higher  mountain  and  one  more  difficult 
to  climb,  but  you  have  reached  the  splendid 
crest.  May  It  be  long  before  you  are  called 
to  go  down  on  the  other  side.  If  honor 
and  esteem  can  make  you  happy,  you  ought 
to  be  one  of  the  happiest  of  men  as  your 
great  anniversary  approaches. 

Will  you  present  my  kindly  greetings 
also  to  your  good  wife.  She  comes  in  for  a 
large  share  of  the  grateful  applause  w^hich 
Is  now  finding  Its  way  toward  your  far 
Western  home. 


AT    SUNDOWN  "5 


Many  blessings  such  as  you  both  deserve 
be  yours — no  better  gift  could  be  asked  for 
you. 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

Amory  H.  Bradford. 

San  Francisco,  April  26,   1897. 
Dear  Dr.  McLean: 

Allow  me  to  congratulate  you  on  the  com- 
pletion of  your  quarter  century  of  work  in 
this  region.  It  is  work  whose  results  have 
been  felt  all  over  the  continent.  I  remem- 
ber well  when  you  left  Springfield,  111.,  and 
the  sense  of  loss  all  over  that  State  at  your 
going,  but  it  has  resulted  in  a  far  greater 
work  than  you  could  have  done  there.  I 
hope  you  may  be  spared  many  years  yet  for 
counsel  and  such  work  as  your  years  and 
experience  make  unusually  valuable  to  us 
all. 

Cordially  yours, 

Geo.  C.  Adams. 

Berkeley,   March  31,    1904. 
Professor  C.  S.  Nash, 
Pacific  Seminary, 
Dear  Professor: 

It  may  seem  strange  that  one  who,  like 
myself,  has  only  come  in  upon  Dr.  Mc- 
Lean's field  of  activities  long  after  their  be- 
ginning, and  from  the  outside,  should  ven- 
ture to  utter  a  word  on  an  occasion  such  as 


Il6  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

this.  But  our  friend  has  been  so  much  an 
open-air  man,  in  every  sense  of  the  words, 
that  even  outsiders  feel  that  they  securely 
know  him,  and  can  vouch  for  the  genuine- 
ness and  worth  of  what  he  is  and  what  he 
has  done. 

I  therefore  rejoice  with  you  and  with 
him,  upon  this  auspicious  day.  Calm  rev- 
eller in  out-of-doors,  camper-out,  fisherman, 
sometimes  even  hunter,  he  has  only  shown 
In  this  way,  during  a  long  and  vigorous  life 
an  openness  and  hospitality  of  spirit — a 
temper  wide  and  free  and  wholesome  like 
the  sky  and  the  broad  woodland.  He  has 
thus  spread  around  him,  in  his  serious  call- 
ing as  a  minister  of  religion  and  a  director 
of  theological  studies,  an  atmosphere  of 
liberal  and  invigorating  conviction.  Open- 
mlndedness,  accessablllty  to  new  truth, 
cheerful  and  courageous  assurance  that  the 
unchangeable  realities  of  God  and  religion, 
as  presented  in  the  life  and  teaching  of 
Jesus  Christ,  will  remain  unharmed,  nay, 
will  shine  In  only  new  splendor,  amid  all 
the  changes  that  new  and  real  experience 
and  knowledge  bring  with  them  as  man- 
kind reaps  more  and  more  the  harvests  of 
Its  real  powers — these  have  been  the  char- 
acters written  all  over  the  many  years  that 
our  friend  has  lived,  the  Interior  things  of 
his  spirit  that  match  the  free  and  hearty 
gladness  of  his  use  of  the  air  and  the  stream 
and  the  forest. 


AT    SUNDOWN  1 1? 


"Simon  Peter"  his  old  and  closest  friends 
have  called  him,  in  consonance  with  the 
half-humor,  half-solemnity  of  his  tone  and 
his  pursuit, — fisherman,  but,  after  all, 
chiefly  fisher  of  men.  Unyielding,  in  his 
main  purposes,  the  purposes  of  his  Master, 
he  has  yet  known  how  to  enliven  their  earn- 
est gravity  with  kindly  play,  and  to  win  and 
hold  to  them  multitudes  of  the  aspiring 
and  the  progressive  who  might  otherwise 
have  easily  wandered  into  the  desert  re- 
gions of  the  soul.  May  he  see  ever  richer 
fruit  of  his  already  fruitful  days. 

Salvum  fac,  Domine,  Johannena  Knox 
McLean! 

Believe  me,  dear  Professor  Nash, 

Yours  and  our  friend's  most  cordially, 
G.  H.  HowisoN. 

Hamilton,  New  York,  March  25,  1904. 
My  Dear  Dr.  McLean: 

The  "Congregationalist,"  received  to- 
day, tells  me  of  your  approaching  birthday 
and  the  celebration  of  it  that  your  friends 
propose  to  make.  I  am  only  a  new  friend, 
touching  only  the  border  of  your  long 
period,  but  I  shall  be  glad  to  be  counted  a 
real  friend  though  a  new  one,  and  cannot 
be  content  without  speaking  my  word  of 
congratulation.  I  knew  already  that  you 
had  fought  a  good  fight,  and  served  your 
generation  according  to  the  will  of  God, 


Il8  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

but  the  story  that  I  have  read  to-day  brings 
your  useful  service  still  more  plainly  be- 
fore me.  I  congratulate  you  on  it  all,  and 
on  all  the  health  and  happiness  and  power, 
still  unbroken,  in  which  you  come  to  your 
seventieth  anniversary.  May  you  have  yet 
many  good  years  for  the  good  work.  It  is 
good  to  think  of  the  outlook  for  service 
that  still  stretches  on  before  you. 

With  warmest  congratulations,  in  which 
Mrs.  Clarke  wishes  her  share  to  be  ex- 
pressed, I  am. 

Sincerely  yours, 
William  Newton  Clarke. 

Dr.  McLean  did  not  speak  much  about  the 
Other  Life,  less  probably  every  year  as  he  drew 
nearer  to  it.  But  that  is  far  from  signifying 
that  he  did  not  think  much  about  it.  For  years 
he  had  grounded  himself  in  a  sane  and  confident 
belief  in  the  immortal  life.  In  the  last  of  his 
Easter  sermons  in  his  own  pulpit,  he  said: 

My  soul  craves  immortality.  I  want  to 
live;  I  want  to  live  eternally;  I  want  to  live 
out  and  on  some  of  this  mortal  life  which  I 
have  known  here;  I  want  the  life  of  God 
to  be  in  my  eternal  future;  but  I  crave  to 
have  the  best  things  also  out  of  this  mortal 
life.  When  I  can  love  no  longer  the  fields 
and  forest,  and  the  flowers  and  birds,  and 
little  children  and  beautiful  hearted  women 
and  manly  and  noble  men;  when  I  can  no 
longer  love  the  works  of  God  and  the  King- 


AT   SUNDOWN  HQ 


dom  of  God,  as  I  love  them  now;  and  when 
I  can  no  longer  love  the  Son  of  God,  as  I 
love  Him  now,  it  would  seem  to  me  that 
then  I  could  almost  crave  to  die.  Not  to 
die  merely,  but  (I  say  it  with  reverence) 
to  be  obliterated.  But  thanks  be  to  God 
for  His  unspeakable  gift.  Three  things 
are  guaranteed  to  us :  faith,  hope  and  love. 
And  the  greatest  of  these  is  love;  greatest 
in  its  abiding  power. 

As  this  untiring  toiler  stood  on  the  mountain 
summit  of  his  seventy-eighth  year,  after  the  long 
climb,  and  looked  backward  and  forward,  he 
found  himself,  he  said,  agreeing  w^ith  Dr.  Glad- 
den, when,  at  the  close  of  his  "Recollections," 
he  says  that  "religion  means  nothing  but  friend- 
ship." He,  too,  would  like,  he  said,  to  be  guar- 
anteed another  seventy  years  in  just  such  a  world 
as  this.  "It  is  good  for  any  man  who  will  hold 
up  his  head  and  keep  a  trusting  heart."  Sertis 
coelum  radiit.  In  the  quiet  of  those  autumn 
days  he  wrote  out  this  simple  statement  of  his 
faith,  based  on  John  17:  21-23: 

God  knowing  us,  moving  in  us,  growing 
in  us;  we  knowing  god,  moving  in  god, 
GROWING  IN  God,  eternally. 

On  the  sixteenth  day  of  February,  19 14,  Doc- 
tor McLean  passed  gently  and  painlessly  into 
the  Greater  Company.  His  friends  felt  they 
could  almost  overhear  the  joy  of  the  welcome. 
It  was  a  grey  day,  of  cloud  and  rain ;  but  in  the 
west  there  was  a  band  of  light.     The  funeral 


I20  JOHN    KNOX     MCLEAN 

service  was  held  on  the  morning  of  February 
eighteenth  at  his  home  In  Channing  Way,  and 
was  simple  and  tender. 

A  memorial  service,  largely  attended,  was  held 
upon  Sunday  afternoon,  March  first,  at  four 
o'clock  In  the  First  Church  of  Oakland.  It  was 
a  radiant  spring  day,  as  full  of  sunshine  as  the 
spirit  that  had  now  passed  beyond  the  sunset. 
The  lifelike  portrait  painted  for  the  church  by 
Miss  Margaret  C.  Herrick  stood  upon  the  plat- 
form, encircled  with  flowers.  A  chorus  choir 
made  up  of  many  of  the  older  singers  of  the 
church  sang,  "Hark,  Hark,  My  Soul!"  The 
hymns  were:  "How  firm  a  foundation,"  and 
"For  all  the  saints  who  from  their  labors  rest." 
The  addresses  were  made  by  Doctor  E.  R. 
Dllle,  formerly  pastor  of  the  First  Methodist 
Episcopal  Church  of  Oakland,  and  a  friend  of 
many  years  of  Doctor  McLean,  and  by  Presi- 
dent Nash  of  Pacific  Theological  Seminary. 
The  latter,  after  reviewing  the  larger  services 
which  Doctor  McLean  had  rendered,  said: 

And  then  shadows  crept  In  and  twilight 
fell.  And  why?  we  asked,  For  "so" — 
sometimes — "He  giveth  His  beloved 
sleep."  And  he  was  as  one  who  "wanders 
down  the  dim-llt  forest  aisles  with  brooding 
eyes  and  reverent,  slow  feet."  We  could 
not  quite  attend  him  In  the  gathering 
shadows,  not  knowing  all  he  saw.  It  was 
mainly  a  happy  time,  the  happiest  of  his 
life  he  told  me.  He  heard  the  hermit 
thrush  In  his  boyhood's  woods,  and  trod  his 


AT  SUNDOWN 


father's  farm,  and  looked  and  listened  for 
what  might  follow.  One  day — It  might  be 
a  year  or  two  ago — he  heard  me  repeat  a 
rarely  beautiful  stanza,  and  asked  me  for  a 
copy.  I  wonder  If  he  kept  It  by  him,  as 
he  certainly  recognized  himself  In  Its  mir- 
ror.   This  Is  the  picture  and  the  prayer: 

"So  be  my  passing! 
My  task  accomplished  and  the  long  day  done, 
My  wages  taken,  and  In  my  heart 
Some  late  lark  singing; 
Let  me  be  gathered  to  the  quiet  west, 
The  sundown  splendid  and  serene." 

The  Berkeley  Club,  formed  In  1873,  of  which 
he  was  the  last  surviving  charter  member,  held 
a  memorial  on  the  evening  of  April  third,  at 
which  grateful  reminiscent  words  were  spoken 
by  many  of  his  friends.  Other  tributes,  per- 
sonal and  public  came  from  every  side,  justify- 
ing the  statement  of  Dr.  Edward  Lincoln 
Smith  concerning  him  in  The  Congregationalist : 
"He  exerted  a  wider  and  deeper  influence  on 
the  Pacific  Coast  than  any  other  individual 
man." 

The  restless,  on-moving  current  of  Pacific 
Coast  civilization  into  which  Doctor  McLean 
cast  his  life  sweeps  swiftly  on  In  ever  widening 
channels,  eagerly  concerned  with  the  present  and 
the  future,  forgetful  of  the  past.  Yet  this  man 
who  so  earnestly  loved  and  served  the  life  of  the 
Pacific  Coast  In  Its  formative  days,  and  who  was 
in  turn  so  taken  to  its  heart,  will  remain,  as  one 


122  JOHN    KNOX    MCLEAN 

whose  Strong,  ennobling  Influence  cannot  be  ex- 
punged from  Its  future.  And  the  men  and  wo- 
men of  faith,  who  in  all  the  coming  years  lift 
their  eyes  to  the  sun-bathed  circle  of  these  hills 
and  mountains  that  he  loved  will  find  life  truer 
and  purer,  more  real  and  joyous,  because  of 
John  Knox  McLean. 


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